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photo / podcast / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Today’s notes
30
Aug 17

Today’s notes

I don’t mean to pile on to anyone’s circumstance. If you aren’t there and you don’t know, then it is about the farthest thing from walking a mile in someone else’s shoes as possible. So I don’t want to speculate, because there was, perhaps, a legitimate concern or distraction of some sort at play here. And not knowing the story, I’d just be making one up and doing a disservice, perhaps even an injustice, to another person. I want to be mindful of that.

Besides, I’m hard pressed to imagine the sequence of events that would lead to me forgetting my belt in a public restroom:

Preying Mantis

But I hope it makes it back to its rightful owner eventually.

Last Thursday, before we produced our first live television broadcast of the school year, I gave four guys a crash course in podcast production. And then, on Friday morning I gave them a glimpse into audio editing. And now they have a show. Here is their first episode:

Not bad for a bunch of print students, I think. It’s all there, if they but seize the initiative. It is so cool when they seize the initiative.

Meanwhile, in Houston:

That is a friendly neighborhood Spiderman, indeed.

Friday / Instagram / IU / Twitter — Comments Off on And so it begins
18
Aug 17

And so it begins

With the sweaty palms and nervous smiles of new graduate students at the dean’s annual welcome event, the new school year is upon us.

Dean Shanahan welcomes new grad students and new and returning faculty to a new year at @iumediaschool. #360

A post shared by Kenny Smith (@kennydsmith) on

For the record, I voted for an endless summer. But at least I have a 360 camera to tinker with.

cycling / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Sometimes it is easier to sit than to do
17
Aug 17

Sometimes it is easier to sit than to do

This is a video I shot last weekend. We were at the Olympic Distance Triathlon National Championship where The Yankee was racing. She was out on her bike at the time, which gave me a few minutes to sit and enjoy the nice weather and the shade. Those are two things, I think, we don’t do often enough.

So there I sat and I looked up and this was above me and I decided to make a video. I’d intended it to be a meditative thing for the front page because sitting under a shade tree and watching the sunlight blink through it. That’s one of the most relaxing things I can think of doing, roughly ever. When I sat down to edit the video last night I found that the file size was just too large. But I really liked the video. Fortunately, in this age of wonders, there are more places than just the front page of your website where things like this can go. So it is going here:

There, isn’t that better?

Well, it was, except for this:

Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Take it away, parrot!
16
Aug 17

Take it away, parrot!

This was from downtown Omaha. They had an art exposition in 2004 and after that was completed the artist donated this to the city. It sits in a mall park and is quite the popular installation.

But that’s because the good people of Omaha haven’t seen this bird perform yet!

history / markers / photo / site / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on Hurry up, cookie
9
Aug 17

Hurry up, cookie

With this evening’s dinner came this good news:

fortune

The obvious reply is … Well?

And the obvious retort is “You got lucky numbers on the next line, pal. This is an American thing, not some ancient mystic wisdom. This is from a factory in Manitowoc, Wisconsin or some place and not from a specifically catered-to-you diving insight. We use a javascript the boss’s nephew wrote to randomize these notes, after all.”

Which is funny in its own way. The last time we ordered Chinese we got four cookies. Two cookies each! My fortunes were identical. So someone in Manitowoc needs to step it up.

In our undying effort to set the record straight, Wikipedia will now tell us where fortune cookies are made:

The largest manufacturer of the cookies is Wonton Food Inc., headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. They make over 4.5 million fortune cookies per day. Another large manufacturer are Baily International in the Midwest and Peking Noodle in the Los Angeles area. There are other smaller, local manufacturers including Tsue Chong Co. in Seattle, Keefer Court Food in Minneapolis and Sunrise Fortune Cookie in Philadelphia. Many smaller companies will also sell custom fortunes.

So be on the lookout the next time you get a fortune cookie. Then maybe you start a spreadsheet and see whose cookies have the highest rate of prophetic accuracy.

Here’s a fine looking building:

Monroe County Courthouse

Find out more about it on the historic markers site. There are more interesting and important local places you can see right here.

And I think you should read this on Twitter:

It’s nice to see the public-facing Bill Murray have such a nice year. Seems the least the universe can do.

I hope he didn’t steal my luck, though. The fortune cookie came to me, after all.

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