This is that weird time of year. Sad and happy. Sad to see some young friends go; happy to have a regular schedule over the summer. Sad to know I won’t see them in the fall; happy to see them take their next great steps. Time marches us on.
This is the the second group of people who I’ve had for four years. Last year’s senior cohort was a bit small, and, of course, truncated by global events. This senior class, though, there’s a bunch of people that have spent all four years of their college experience working on this. What a commitment that is, to spend four years of your college life working in one place! And this is the week when we kick them all out of the nest. Time plays this cruel trick and, clearly, I should stop doing this.
There’s a lot deal of talent right there, and those three are off to great, exciting things. They’ll continue to make us proud. Tomorrow we start talking about how we follow them next year. We continue on, as time demands.
Tomorrow there are more projects aplenty. Time is relentless.
photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Come on, honestly 20 Apr 21
I’d like to compare and contrast yesterday and today.
I’d also like to point out the date. We’re in the latter third of April. We’re accumulating snow. Who wants this? Who chooses this?
We were in the television studio tonight watching it fall. It didn’t drift down peacefully. It didn’t flutter in the air prompting a meditative mood. It looked like the snow was being flung to the ground. Someone up there was angry with the stuff, flinging it off a shoe, dusting it off a jacket with a vengeance. I’m pretty sure no one here is pleased with it either. But, I guess, you just concede to psychological response akin to brainwashing.
This was a car parked out back of the building. It belongs to one of the evening maintenance people, and I walked out just before 8 p.m. I also have an approximate sense of when those nice people show up, so I knew it was gathering pretty quickly.
Indeed, on the drive to the house it was collecting quickly enough on the roof of my car that it was sloshing out when I cautiously accelerated through intersections. It was that melting-turning-immediately-to-ice stuff. The stuff that’s gross any time of year, but incredibly laughable for … yep, it’s still April 20th.
It’s still snowing, late into the evening. Can’t wait to see what it looks like in the morning.
photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Not sure why there’s not more to this 13 Apr 21
Mine was a bit like a Monday. By the afternoon it wore off, but the time in between a quick run and the p.m. hours it was a Monday. This was dropped. That was forgotten. This got broken and so on.
Days like that it is imperative to always, always, know where your keys are at all times.
The day’s many emails went without incident. And I started the first halting steps of a new Twitter thing I’m trying for work. (It involves work and, eventually, Twitter. There, we are caught up.)
And then there was the studio, where fun things always happen. (One of our cameras is malfunctioning, but the students persevered and actually finished slightly ahead of schedule, to their credit. Also they brought in a comedienne. I hope there are clips of her work, otherwise it’s just a conversation. We’ll see tomorrow.)
So I’m down to showing off my pocketsquare, but isn’t that what Instagram is for? (It is a good one. Go on over and check it out. We’ll wait for your return.)
Classic blue shirt, a basic Brooks Brothers shirt I like, but it’s getting a little old, sadly. And those little seasonal flowers in a little spring-time purple. That’s fun. Makes up for the jacket. I’m weary of this jacket.
Fun fact: Google has never crawled a page where the preceding sentence was written. Weird, right?
My peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunch wasn’t much to write home about — weird how that same thing can vary so widely from day-to-day — but the grilled chicken this evening was tasty. Oh, and I managed to not spray water all over the kitchen when I did the dishes afterward!
I could get about 600 words out of that. Already I’m sitting at 300.
I have two blisters on my hand and one less tree in the yard. These two things are related.
The tree was an Eastern black walnut, and some really thoughtful person planted it right next to the house. Well, this tree grew, as trees do, and it was crowded to the edge of the house and the porch and, after we spent the evening wrenching it from the earth, perhaps growing directly into the foundation.
Also some of the hedges got trimmed. Not all of them, because of that tree. It took longer than it should have, that tree. And now a flowering shrubbery of some sort will eventually go in its place.
You know the joke we’ve all shared this year about hand sanitizer finding all the new cuts on your hands? I remembered that when I made it to the office this morning.
That shovel was mean to me, is what I’m saying.
I sat in my little office and worked and then I went to the television studio. Speaking of the studio, here are two recent shows students produced that I haven’t shared with you. First, the evening show, from the growing-familiar-to-us-now bar set.
The drinks are stage props, and most definitely not for people in that establishment.
And here’s the morning show produced a new episode in the other studio, because that’s what morning shows do.
Tonight I watched crews do anchor practice in the same space. A lot of freshmen and sophomores came in for a few reads and, most importantly, feedback. The news directors, graduating seniors, ran the thing and they gave all the younger students great notes. That was a lot of fun to see. It wasn’t the changing of the guard, but it was a rehearsal. We’re getting ready to send more great young graduates into the world, and they are getting the underclassmen ready to start running the joint. It’s a great moment, if almost bittersweet.
I could tell you everything else about the day, but I know you really want to hear about the kitchen sink. And you’re going to hear all about that. You’re going to hear all about it tomorrow, because I got a reprieve tonight. So be sure you come back for that.
IU / photo / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on The only thing I didn’t phone in today was this post 30 Mar 21
Took off from work today. Called in sick, by which I mean I woke up at about 7 a.m. and wrote a message in the Slack app and went back to sleep.
Here’s the bottom line. If you’ve ever been sick in your life you’ve felt worse than I do today. I almost have a headache. I almost feel like I have a sore throat. I have the mildest fever modern technology can observe. I am supremely tired. In fact, I’ve spent much of the day in bed. My chief complaint, then, doing my part to stay safe and help ensure the safety of the people around me, is general fatigue.
Well, I’m tired a lot anyway, so a long nap is a nice treat. And so long as I don’t have to move around a lot I can forget how weary I feel. Tomorrow will be a bit better, I’m sure. And the next day, too. And we’re already counting down the days to full vaccination, two weeks from yesterday.
After that we look forward to safely, carefully, seeing vaccinated family. My in-laws are already considering dates to visit, and that’s great! They’re vaccinated and outside their own two-week window, and so we can soon have a nice reunion soon, after some 17 months apart.
That’s what it will take, pragmatic choices, careful decisions. We’ve done that for a year. We’re comfortable continuing in that way. There won’t be any big crowded events or restaurants or exotic travel in our near future, but that’s OK. I appreciate the idea that we’re all a part of the field study. Experts are trying to determine how the vaccines and the real world are working together. And when you think of it in that light a slow and careful transition to more conventional behavior seems like obviously the right choice.
For the immediate future, then, my vaccine will feel a lot like a mental relief. The efficacy data of all of the shots are incredibly promising. People that have devoted their life to this work are very encouraged about what they’re coming to understand and what it will mean for us. And, until that’s written in stone, I can behave cautiously. I’ll be wearing masks at work for the foreseeable future anyway, but in two weeks I’ll feel better about our prospects in general. Some weight may be lifted. Perhaps I’ll lesson the decontamination procedures at the door of the house. Personal Space Guy won’t feel as invasive, eventually.
I’m still going to be mystified by Can’t Cover My Nose Man, though.
Now we’ve just got to get the rest of the populace on board. The concern has to be in the laggard adopters of the vaccine. We are all just treading water until everyone gets a bandaid on their arm.
I saved the cats until today, because it seemed like there wouldn’t be much more going on here. They are doing great, of course. Mostly because they did not get shots this week.
Phoebe has the serve.
She looks as tired as I feel, here.
I’m not sure what Poseidon was doing under the table, to be honest. Maybe he’s practicing to become a repair cat. Who can tell with him.
He seldom explains himself, after all.
Probably he spends most of his time wondering why we think he should feel compelled to explain himself. That’s a cat thing, surely.
There is a podcast to share. This is the one I recorded and edited last Friday. I referred to it vaguely in this space, as well. And now you can listen to it. It was a delightful conversation about children and teens and a year of Covid. There’s a fair amount of “Kids are resilient, but …” And it’s a fine conversation about a fascinating topic with, unfortunately, few definitive answers at the moment.
I came to find, after the fact, an old feature story about Jerry Wilde, the professor I’m talking with there. Some years back he received an organ transplant from a former student. What an impression one person must have made on the other, to inspire them to do so in kind.
And to wrap up a day where I’ve done nothing but sleep and have all of this to show for it, this is a show the late night crew shot in Studio 5. It’s getting meta and awkward, but that’s all in character.
