Thursday

hobby / IU / photo / Thursday — Comments Off on I made a thing, at the bottom of this post
22
Oct 20

I made a thing, at the bottom of this post

Got the oil changed in my car today. I was many miles past due. The place here has the model where you park the car and sit in their waiting area and they drive it around back and do the work. I miss the old days, when you could drive your car into the bay and the tech guided you to get it just right over the pit.

I always liked seeing the enterprise of it. Hood up, exotic sounds made, shouted commands back-and-forth from topside and down where the real work is taking place. He just opened a valve and supervised gravity, of course, but it seemed mysterious if you don’t think about it.

I liked when they come along and open the car doors and push a shot of WD-40 into the door hinges. The smells of light industry! I enjoyed when they tell you how all the things look and the one guy would come around and show you the dipstick, “And the gentleman will enjoy a 10w30 this evening … ” presenting it like you were two steps above a table wine.

My favorite part was the participatory bit where they ran you through the headlights, taillights, brake lights, blinkers and horn. I gave a short curt toot on the horn. These people heard this all of the time and they didn’t need me to sit on the thing. Just enough sound so that the guy running the safety check can verify the horn is in working order. I took great pride in that.

The place here, though, you’re sitting in a small row of chairs. It seems like an even less pleasant idea these days. Fortunately I timed it well. There was one other person there and she left soon after I arrived. There are no magazines to look over. I suspect those went the way of the dodo when some manager realized everyone was looking at their phones anyway.

After about 15 minutes the technician came in with my air filter in his hand. Looks good, he said, but the cabin filter is so brittle that removing it to show you would destroy it.

Well. Let’s replace that. If there’s anything I need right now it’s properly filtered air.

He came in later and said the one he took out was the factory filter. Of course it is.

The lady at the desk then conducted the business part of the transaction. Fluids are good. Wipers are good. Everything is good, except two tires are aging.

Knew that.

One of them is basically bold.

Guess I’ll get that changed sooner than later.

We wound up talking about her child. Turns out she has a five-year-old. And kids are tough and he understands that he can’t do all of the things that kids should be able to do now. He’s back in school, and he gets masks. He even, she says, points out others who aren’t wearing a mask and wonders why.

You and me both, kid.

She says virtual work and masks are hurting him with a speech therapy program. You have to be able to see the teacher’s mouth for so much of that style of instruction, but if the pathologist is wearing a mask …

It’s just another one of those million things we don’t think about until we’re confront by it.

At television tonight, with all of the students in masks, of course, the sports gang produced their highlight show. Next week they will finally have some highlights! So far it’s been virtual interviews and some practice updates and now a story about how there will be no tailgating and a feature on the university’s brand new golf course. And, of course, this Saturday, there will be football.

It’s that unique and special time of year for fans, here in late October, when anything is possible because nothing bad has happened on the field yet.

On the talk show they previewed that game, IU hosting Penn State. The guy on the left, Drew, is the host. DJ is the one in the middle is a beat reporter from the newspaper and Haley is one of the station’s beat reporters.

As I said to her just before they sat down to shoot the show, the best part of this job is to watch the students develop their craft. It makes me smile, behind my mask, every time Drew starts this show. I’m also pleased to see how comfortable he’s become, considering how nervous he was when he began. DJ I had in a class early in his time on campus, and he’s showing himself to be a talented young writer and, he was good on TV tonight, too. And Haley is … Haley is just ready.

And all of three of them will graduate this year and we’ll be alternatively proud and sad and that’s just how this level of the game is played.

After TV there was a technical issue to take care of, and then home to clean up for dinner and the debate and then a little football. After all of that I went to the garage and worked on the card holder I mentioned yesterday.

I put some music on in my headphones and put my sound-killing headphones on top of those and my safety glasses around all of it and I broke out the belt sander for a quick pass at 60 grit. Then I took the glasses and the sound-killing headphones off and listened to music while I sanded the rest of the thing by hand up to 800 grit.

And this is my new ID card holder:

It’s not bad. It’s probably a quarter inch smaller than my other ones. My ID card and five business cards make a nice, snug little arrangement. You don’t want things flying out all over the place when you are trying to fish it out of your pocket.

Here, again, is one of the originals:

You’ll note that this new effort also has the fancy curvature at the top. I’m very artisanal.

golf / IU / photo / Thursday / winded-intellectual property — Comments Off on A fancy item, a fancy idea
15
Oct 20

A fancy item, a fancy idea

Homemade pocket square achievement badge unlocked:

No one said a thing. No one noticed it was homemade. Given the few people I see, and how focused they are, probably no one noticed. But the color adds a nice touch, and I got spend part of an afternoon making three of these. I’ll have to make a few more. Perhaps next week.

Today, at the office, and this evening, in the television studio. The sports gang produced two sports shows. They’ll be online tomorrow and over the weekend.

On one show they showed off the university’s new golf course. It was due to open this year but, then, you know, Covid. But they are apparently taking reservations from the public right now. And in the program you can see some of our broadcasters play the course. They really bragged about the experience. I guess I’ll have to dust off my sticks.

My clubs are dusty.

The second show was the talk show, and they discussed the best college sports traditions. Things to do, mascots, music, experiences, and so on.

And it brought to mind a good idea for a class on sports culture. Here’s the short version: You feature guests from various other college programs, athletic directors, ambassador types, foundation people. You research the fan experience to get an overview of the atmosphere of the place. And then you go take part in the game day experience, not as a fan, but as an observer of the operation.

Think of it. We go to see the same show every time. The tailgate. The souvenir place. The must-have restaurant or bar. The game, and all the attendant ceremonies before-during-and-after the game. And you go back, again and again. The only thing that changes are the players and the game itself.

You may argue that that is why you spend the money and go and do all of those things, and you’re right! But you also go for the other things, too. The whole experience is part of your personal cultural journey into the collective experience. It’s all a part of the pageantry, brought on when ol’ State U comes to town. Universities put on a great show. The band has to be over here by this time, the other thing starts precisely 10 minutes later and then you’re in your seats for the precisely worded announcement from the PA, it’s all a part of your scheduled program. It’s all a part of the culture. I’ve seen enough, and worked in a few, to know a good show when I see one. And the ones that keep bringing you back those are good shows. And they all feature a “if it ain’t broke” mentality. We like that sameness, that familiarity, that timely link to a timeless time that we’re all trying to cling to.

So what if you did an examination of your own school’s setup? And then did the same with two or three geographically close programs to see how the other guys do it? What a class experience that would be. The guys tonight were talking about this and that, and it’s all a surface-level appreciation. Some of it they have maybe experienced, or only read about or watched on TV. But they don’t know what prompted that song to be a thing, or how it came to be there, and who really deserves the credit.

And, as college sports are grounded in that sameness, the tradition of it all, you need to be able to appreciate those things to know what you’re taking part in. Here’s my forever question: when does something contrived become a tradition? We’d like to think our favorite elements of this sort of pageantry evolved organically, on our own fan terms, but you’re mistaken. They started deliberately from somewhere. The selectivity wasn’t necessarily ours. It’s a great way to see it, and it’s a clever way to sell it to us, as appreciators of the old ways and all that. When does something contrived become a tradition? To answer that you have to ask: does anyone really remember, and do we individually know? And from the program’s standpoint, why is it this way? Because it works and the people want it that way. The entire experience would be thinner if you took away those favored elements. The whole trip is the experience, then, not just the game.

So, from the perspective of students of sociology or anthropology or people who want to go into sports administration or operations, this is a solid idea.

It will never go anywhere.

Anyway, the TV shows they produced tonight should be fun. I’ll put them here when they get them online.

IU / photo / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on A long night
8
Oct 20

A long night

Are you enjoying Catober? Phoebe is very serious about her naps. I don’t know how any creature can look that intense, if I can mis-anthropomorphize, while relaxing, but that’s how she does it. Click that link to catch up, if you’re somehow behind. Tomorrow’s Catober entry will feature Poseidon. There will probably be hijinks.

Didn’t get all of the things done today, but a few more items are off the list. The rest will, no doubt, get at some later date. More phone calls and forms to fill out and an oil change for the car. All of that will happen next week, I suppose. Or tomorrow. But probably next week. Because tomorrow is fully about email.

I spent a lot of time on the phone today, and then the evening in the television studio, watching the sports gang do their thing. After that, a late meeting with some students before I could leave. It looked like this:

The building next to ours has a chime in the tower and that’s how I knew the time: 8:45.

At least I don’t have an early morning meeting tomorrow.

Here’s some programming the television people produced this week. The late night show brings you some funnies:

And here are the two shows from the news team:

We had soup for dinner, and around here we say “Hooray soup!” Mostly, I think, because it’s good. Now, with the dishes done, I’ll put another armful of laundry through its paces and then get ready to start tomorrow, and, then, the weekend. Thursdays in the fall are just a preface.

IU / photo / podcast / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on A true multimedia day
1
Oct 20

A true multimedia day

Happy Catober! We’re showing off the kitties in a separate post every day. While shot is of the two of them sitting together, most of the upcoming photo feature will show them off one at a time. You’ll have a nice shot of Phoebe tomorrow, and Poseidon on Saturday, for example. Today’s opener is also a classic photo, from this summer. They’re both relaxing on a cover I built to keep them … off … the stove top.

So, in a sense, that cover works. In a sense.

My day started with a morning meeting about spreadsheets. At least I wasn’t filling them out, because this particular database is organized in a somewhat mysterious way. The end product promises to be promising, but the front end has unique demands. Fortunately, a very nice person was interpreting what I had to say about the information involved and she was able to make that work within the spreadsheet.

If you can be lucky enough to find pleasant, talented people, the database mysteries become less mysterious.

And so it was a long day, because it started in that Zoom meeting and then it moved directly into a podcast, and then into a whole host of other things.

Careful and attentive listeners — and that’s you, right? — might remember I interviewed Dr. Baggetta a few months ago about running a political campaign during a public health crisis. (And tonight, boy, that seems like an interesting topic, doesn’t it?) I wrote him during the debate and asked if I could follow up with him on one quick point. He wrote me right back and said “We need to talk about all of these things.”

So we did. It is public service podcasting, basically. People in this state have a few days left to register to vote, and he gets into that and much more. It was an easy interview, a clean edit and I had it all online in a few hours, including lunch and actually driving in to the office.

The work day ended after 8 p.m. in the television studio. And in between it was a blank, windowless world. It looked like a nice evening from the studio, though:

They did sports tonight. I watched from the studio, and peered into the crowded control room and remain impressed by how it feels more like March than September. Which is to say there’s a degree of prompt professionalism already coming into the group. You never know how each group within each year will go. Interpersonal dynamics, a new team and new leadership every year and all that. And then you add in the time we lost in the spring, the longer layoff, and maybe, just maybe, all the other things going on in the students’ regular lives this year, and I really had no idea what to expect this year.

They’ve been focused and efficient and ready to get the job done. Now, in the case of the sports crew, they just need more sports. But until that happens, they’re starting to expand their boundaries, which we are encouraging. It is, I keep saying, a great year to experiment.

Here is a brief news show from Tuesday. Just needs some more news.

And a real-life celebrity on the pop-culture show.

I hope they figure out ways to get more of those types of interviews on their shows.

Anyway, home just in time to shower and have dinner and then do the dishes and stare at the many different glowing screams.

It was worth it, for this:

IU / memories / podcast / Thursday / Wednesday — Comments Off on A political campaign ‘listen to this’
24
Sep 20

A political campaign ‘listen to this’

When I was in graduate school I took a class on political communication. The professor was a famous and renowned pollster. And after a day or two the professor would ask the class a question and the class just looked at me.

I was conscientious of that. I didn’t want to be that guy, but they were pretty clear that I should be that guy. The professor would later become my committee chair, did me a few solid favors in the program and later took credit for introducing me to my wife.

He was only slightly wrong about that, but he’d earned the literacy license with me.

So esteemed was Dr. Powell in our eyes that, despite him asking us for years to address him by his first name, “Because we are colleagues,” we all still refer to him as Dr. Powell. He’s a good man.

And I was thinking of him while I was interviewing Dr. Gerald Wright, who is in the political science department at IU. We talked about the upcoming presidential debates. So I was very happy for the opportunity, because this is the part of politic campaigns that I like: the message construction, the real body work.

The debates, probably not as much. They’re important, but they’re not. You know what you know about the candidates. You like who you like. And not much that can happen at a debate, or even a series of them, will move people who have made up their minds.

They’re debates, but they’re not. The formats aren’t really debates anymore. We don’t know all of the details about this debate cycle, yet, but there’s little to suggest the previous sentence will be wrong. It has been written that they’re basically press conferences in their current form, and that’s not exactly wrong.

They’re entertaining and informative, but they’re not. You have to follow and know politics to be entertained by them. If that describes you, you won’t learn much that’s continually informative for you. If you’re apathetic to the process in general — and far, far too many are — then you’re probably not watching, or paying only scant attention anyway.

They’re a part of the process, but they’re mostly just a tradition at this point. It’d be terrific, from the perspective of civics, if they were more than an academic study. I’m sure Dr. Powell will have a great deal to discuss with his classes during and after the debates. And I bet Dr. Wright will, as well. You get the impression, from the interview above, that he’ll have a lot to say to his students’ benefit.

He asked, before I could remind him, if I wanted the soundbite answers or the professorial answers. You’ve no idea how much I wanted to insist on the really in-depth stuff.

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