Tuesday

bespoke / photo / running / swimming / Tuesday — Comments Off on Oh so colorful
8
Jun 21

Oh so colorful

As of today I can be out of the heady cufflink manufacturing game. I’ve been making my own, you see. And I had some great fabric and the bits to put all the cufflinks together. But, now, the task is complete. Just when I got into a good rhythm of producing the things I’ve run out of supplies. And happily so. Once you’ve created an efficient technique and found the material you want to highlight and cut and trimmed all the fabric and assembled the things … then you count them. And you find … a lot of cufflinks.

At least I’ll have colorful wrists. And I can go a long, long time before repeating any.

Here’s the last batch, then.

I counted them all, so I could note it here. But now maybe it’s enough to say it’s a lot. Making things — most any kind of widgets, really — on your own is inexpensive and brings about a certain satisfaction. And those widgets pile up in a hurry.

Which brings us to the next project, pocket squares. I have so many, of them already, but I’m going to make more.

It’s something to do.

This evening we went for a run. Also something to do. It was in the upper 70s and 90 percent humidity and I just jogged out two easy miles, but that was enough to make it look like I’d been playing in a sprinkler in the back yard.

I use two recording apps for this. I don’t know why. One says I gained 70 feet of total elevation on my two-lap neighborhood route. It always overestimates, if you ask me. (And you just did, in your head, ask me. I know.)

And the other app says I gained 21 feet of elevation. So a disparity between the two, and a not small one, within the context of a short run. This is the fun part. That second app breaks it down by miles. It says I gained zero feet on the second mile. But it recorded an elevation loss of three feet on the first mile. So where did I gain the 21 feet? Or the 24 feet, as the case may be?

We’re worried about our phones tracking us. We should be wondering about what’s tracking us correctly. (And also why we have willingly allowed such things into our lives, sure.)

The Olympic trials are underway, which means the Olympics aren’t far away — should things continue as planned at Tokyo, at any rate. All of this means we are watching people do things near and at their peak human physical capability. And some of the names we know. There was a swimmer in the pool tonight who was my lovely bride’s student last semester. Pretty neat stuff.

He finished seventh in his heat tonight. I don’t know if he’ll ultimately make the team, but he is, as you might expect, very fast.

One thing about the Olympics is that the proper speed of the racing events doesn’t really translate in the camera shots. You really have to be at the venues, and the closer the better, to really appreciate how these gifted athletes go.

Years ago I was in a pool with an Olympic swimmer. This guy was in the lane next to mine during an open lap swim and without writing sonnets about it it gets difficult to express the power and grace they have. It was a pleasure to watch from up close. He did it with the ease and the certainty in which you might open a kitchen drawer. And that was the moment I realized we overuse the phrase “swim like a fish.” That guy did, most of us don’t.

It called to mind a conversation I had with 12-time national champion swimming and diving coach David Marsh. He said “You have to respect someone willing to spend hours and hours, swimming hundreds of laps, to shave a thousandth of a second off of their best time.” And he was right, go figure. (Marsh has also coached 49 Olympians. The man knows stuff.) I think about that comment a lot. You’re gifted, and you work at it. That’s what it is. That’s the historical formula.

And it makes me want to go for another run now …

bespoke / ICR / IU / photo / running / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off on I’d like to draw a bit of attention to my pisiform
1
Jun 21

I’d like to draw a bit of attention to my pisiform

I mentioned that I’d made some new cufflinks, and I did. Here’s the proof you’ve been waiting for.

You were waiting for this, right?

Anyway, cut the fabric, adorn the cufflink face, attach a bit of chain and add the little toggle button thing on the back. After that, take a few pictures for you, dear reader, and then wait to wear them.

And make more in the meantime. It’s t-shirt season, of course. But eventually I’ll have to go into the respectable wardrobe closet and I’ll get to try my hand at accentuating colors.

And I have some really nice material waiting for the next batch. I’ll get pocket squares and cufflinks from them. And then I’ll probably be ready for an intervention.

It’s impressive how quickly things can accumulate if you don’t pay close attention.

Like this, this got out of hand in a hurry. I thought we should talk about the book. My lovely bride co-edited a book that was published recently and we should try a little, you know, publicity. And so I recorded some of her talking about it and I can put it in some places. I decided it’d be a good idea to put it in a tweet and then tag all of the co-authors and their outlets and that was basically my entire afternoon, trying to track those people down.

A copy of the book has been sitting on our coffee table and there’s a little something for everybody there. Someone even wrote about the NCAA and mascots, after all. All of these scholars who have devoted their time to researching this organization and they have a lot to say. (There are problems. Some you’d imagine, and others that probably you haven’t yet considered.) It’s a bold and important book. And it is available to you at …

So order your copy today!

I went out for a run this evening.

I’ve been having a conversation with a friend about how evening runs can be almost meditative — and I am not a person that finds my harmonic zen in running — and so I decided to honor the idea. (Lately I’ve been doing my shuffling in the morning, where the only virtue seems to be that ‘At least that’s out of the way.’) Only, this evening, I had to do it in-between rain showers.

Some people think running in the rain is great. I am not sure why they tell me that. But it’s like anything else. If you’re passionate about it, you have to tell everyone and they have to know it’s the best thing in the world! Just try it! You’ll see! Except running in the rain is not the best thing in the world. Sorry.

So I walked out of the neighborhood and up the small little hill and dodged a few raindrops that arrived earlier than scheduled and then ran back through the neighborhood. And, before I knew it, I had two more humble little miles under my shoes.

This, of course, is nothing. I took a long break from running, as is my routine, and I’ve been slowly easing into it. Because that’s what you do now. You enjoy every ache and pain, aware that this wasn’t there two years ago, or maybe even last time. I figure I’ll try a few more runs at that distance and pace, and then a few more runs at that distance with more pace. And then I’ll marvel at how the slower pace and the faster pace really aren’t that far apart anymore. Because I’m slower now! Never to be fast again! But still moving! And after that, I’ll really start to add some miles in. Just when summer decides to really impress us.

Maybe this approach, I hope, will delay the next inevitable break from running.

It’s funny, I always see someone else riding a bike and think “Wow, look at him go!” or “What a great bike she has!” And I find myself just the tiniest bit jealous that they’re going for a ride and I’m not on my bike just then. But I never see a person running and go “Wow! I wish I had my jogging shoes on right now!”

I thought that again this evening while a guy rode past me during my run. I think he had an e-bike. I was on a bit of a downhill flat section, and feeling OK, but still a bit jealous.

Bet he wasn’t thinking, “Oh, this is fine, but I’d much rather be shuffling around on foot like that guy!”

Just wait until he sees my personalized, bespoke wrist accessories.

adventures / bespoke / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on When everything is too valuable, there’s no value
25
May 21

When everything is too valuable, there’s no value

“I’m going for a walk,” she said just as I came in and sat down. “You’re welcome to go, too, of course.”

Of course I am. Because it’s a free country and all of the outdoors is pretty big and because she likes my company.

Only I’d just gotten in, set my things down, emptied my books and took off my shoes and I was in that first 20 seconds of re-enjoying a comfortable chair experience.

“There’s a house a few neighborhoods over that went on the market, and I want to see it. They listed it at $700,000.”

Which was intriguing enough.

So we walked a few neighborhoods over. It’s similar to ours, but thankfully not ours. It’s a five bedroom house. There’s a small pool. Two-car garage. Brick and siding exterior. Quiet neighborhood. Trees and sidewalks and a driveway and all of that. Newly updated most everything, according to the listing.

It is not a $700,000 house, at least in any rational world.

Let’s look at the pricing history of the house.

In the early spring of 2012 it went on the market for $359,500. In June of that same year it came off the market. It went back up again in April of 2015, now at $399,900. The price was lowered several times, until it finally sold in July or August of 2015 at $379,900.

In March of 2017, it went back up again, listed this time at $409,900. Less than three weeks later, they lowered the price. Three more weeks, another reduction. And they removed the listing, now at $389,900, in July of that same year.

Now, a word about this market. It’s wacky, even in the best of times. Purchases are often seasonal, based on academic schedules, and you apparently have to act fast, even when there isn’t a crunch. When we came up to shop for houses the majority of what we picked out in the days and a week or two before were off the market by the time we got here. Ultimately, we got perhaps our top realistic choice — everyone has that one they’d try to rationalize over-extending for, right? — and only then because the timing was just, just so precisely right. Another day, either side, it might not have worked out.

Also, and this is important, we don’t have a $700,000 house.

And if I was somehow interested in buying a house for $700,000, I would want a little more space in the yard and privacy as opposed to what this little quaint neighborhood domicile will provide. Also, this is a college town. There are two substantial industries here, and not that many folks, I would imagine, are looking in that range. Good luck to them, but given that locale’s history, and the comps around them, it just doesn’t seem plausible. That price is substantially above the tax assessment, as well. So I’m sure their neighbors are all pleased at this development.

Nice house. No way in the world, in a rational world anyway, it is a $700,000 house. But what even is rational in the housing game at this point?

Low interest rates and market exuberance will keep prices up for a year, maybe two or three. And then there will be some pain. That’s my economic prediction.

My other prediction is that the price on that particular house is going to be lowered.

Last Thursday I mentioned a little project I was working on. Here are the fancy fruits of my minimal labor.

These are homemade cufflinks, in a chain style. There’s a little chain and a non-distinct button on the back to hold a French cuff sleeve together.

So my wrists will look dapper.

And I have quite a few more to make with more cool fabric I have. When you’re making your own, I learned right away, they are terribly inexpensive to make in big batches. So, after I finish another long-running project or two, I’ll have to make a fancy drawer for storage for all of them, eventually.

That ought to raise the property values around here by four or five bucks, right?

hobby / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Some pretty weekend photos
18
May 21

Some pretty weekend photos

Just filling a normal Tuesday. I did work stuff and taught a student some stuff and wrestled the email beast to the ground for another day and wrote a bunch of tweets and edited some audio and those pictures are sounding pretty good right about now, aren’t they?

So here they are. This is the creek. Looked a little low, but otherwise fine, on Saturday:

And we had lovely weather on Sunday afternoon, so we sat on chairs on the deck and read and watched the birds go by.

The red-headed finches, we noticed, run this joint.

We have an excellent anti-squirrel device on our bird seed holder. Now if only the birds were neater this guy wouldn’t be setting up camp.

Also, why do we call it bird seed? If you plant it they don’t grow into birds.

I said, Mr. Goldfinch, the seeds don’t grow into birds.

We have some nice cardinals around here.

And two chipmunks living in the yard, as well.

The male cardinal is a social butterfly.

A quick search suggests that sentence has never been published on a webpage crawled by Google’s spiders. I wonder if this is the same cardinal. I don’t have a learned enough eye to know.

And, again, every time these little finches come through, whatever birds are here split.

There must be a story there, an ornithological opera of aviary avarice about surly seed stinginess, but we didn’t hear about it Sunday. Unless we did. There was a lot of chirping and birdsong.

Tomorrow: we’ll check in on the cats! And there will be a new podcast for you, as well. And maybe some other things! But you’ll only now if you come back to see.

If you have some more time to kill right now, however, there’s always more on Twitter and check me out on Instagram, too. Speaking of On Topic with IU podcasts, and, oh hey, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? They do. Check them out.

IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on The cats are in this one
4
May 21

The cats are in this one

I did an interview today, and then I edited the video. And then I played with the mysterious settings in Adobe Premiere. Everything worked fine, after a subsequent amount of time. It’ll be up tomorrow.

You learn a lot by being self-taught. That’s what I’ve learned, every time. I spend a lot of time thinking about that when I’m messing around with something I’ve taught myself.

Somewhere in all of that is the joy of learning. That’s probably one of those things that means different things to different people, but to me, it’s pretty straightforward. Instilling the willingness to continue to learn in someone, because they understand the delight of discovery, is to give them the drive to want to do it throughout their lives. And what a gift that is, a gift that defeats the fear, the intimidation of learning new things later. Then a person isn’t stagnant. They continue to grow throughout their lives. What a joy that is.

You know people who just sparkle in knowing a new thing. They positively glow at the opportunity. And you know people who blanch at the prospect.

It’s funny, I used to think of this in the context of the elderly. You see it in people a lot earlier, though. And lately I find myself wondering — not about the old guy who knows he’s lived and seen and learned it all, and yet there’s still so much! — but about that middle-aged guy who thinks he’s lived and seen and learned enough.

And he’s going to stagger through the next several decades like that?

That sounds lonely, and depressing, doesn’t it?

So the joy of learning, of discovery, of inquisition, of invention and creation, it shall always be.

These aren’t the problems of philosophy, but, then, it’s only Tuesday.

If it’s Tuesday, that means yesterday was Monday. And I didn’t do the cat feature. So let’s get to that here.

Phoebe did not like this email.

She did not like it at all.

We were sitting out back and Poseidon desperately wanted to be involved.

Really he wanted to find some place to roll around out there, but we’re on to his game.

And now they’re both onto the idea that there’s a chipmunk living in the back yard. If you’ll just follow their eyes here, you’ll see him too.

One day, they are thinking in their little kitty brains, I will catch you and your days of blissfully tormenting us will be over.

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