Have you ever had a day that started with the best of intentions, but then the clock did something weird and you don’t get any of the planned morning things done? You’re not sure how, but you’re left saying, Well, today’s list just became Thursday’s.
No? Just me? OK then.
I recorded something yesterday and it’s out there today, so, please, enjoy:
It seemed a logical line of questions to me. Should we do this? What should we do? How should we do this?
And I’ll tell you a little secret, I got into one of these topics and I was just trying to keep the question on track and under control and thinking How can I do Christmas? Should we even be talking like this? and it’s a little bit heart rending. So, as you might imagine, the question wasn’t going so well.
But just as that happened an alarm on my phone went off. And that gave me the opportunity to re-frame and re-phrase the question. And Shandy Dearth, who is the public health professional here, is a total pro. Also, she’s got really solid advice and perspective and you should listen to what she has to say.
I got home tonight, shed the clothes that had been exposed to the elements of semi-public society, took the cleansing and decontaminating shower and came downstairs to a plate almost ready for dinner:
All I had to do was put the meat on the rice. That’s thoughtful, and full service romance.
Also, it was pretty tasty, too. And, I’m told, we’ll have a flaming onion tomorrow …
It was a studio night tonight, which is an excellent reminder for me to get caught up on studio stuff. Here’s a sports show from late last week:
And here’s a talk show, where they talked about the greatest of all time in all the big sports.
I think they should do a greatest of all times in lesser-known-in-America sports. Make them work at the show prep, and really stress having to sell the argument to an audience who already doesn’t think about Tom Brady or Michael Jordan or Lebron James or whomever.
You know what I need to know? I need to know the best flat to ever swim in water polo, and the greatest brakeman in bobsledding history.
Now that’d be a show worth sinking your teeth into.
Until we get that, please scroll back up and listen to that podcast. Please, and thank you. And wear a mask and social distance and stay home when you can.
We went for a bike ride, because that’s what we do, and because it was an abnormally beautiful weekend day. Just the sort that is intent to try to trick you into thinking this is what the whole fall and most of the winter will be like. It won’t be, and that’s a shame. And I can’t get that out of my head, and that’s an equally big shame.
Did I mention it was a great day? Ridiculous. It was 80 degrees, far beyond what anyone here would expect, which is also a shame.
Anyway, we were going out to the lake, but changed our mind to take a slightly different route. Different roads, different traffic — only yelled at twice, by a dude that, feeling he didn’t get it right the first time, decided to let us get by so he could pass us and yell again — and different views.
It was described to me as a nice, easy ride.
I looked down at one point because my legs notified my brain that I was turning over ridiculous RPMs. We’re talking maximum watts, and I’m torquing the handlebars for all they were worth. And that’s how I found myself in a sprint, at 26 miles per hour, just to stay on the Yankee’s wheel.
We were also climbing a hill when that happened.
Down on the causeway:
And a bit of video somewhere between here and there …
Anyway, yesterday was a lovely day for a ride, and we enjoyed it. And we look forward to the next one. (And it better be 80 degrees again!)
I also got to play around with part of this wood carving project I started on Friday:
This is just a test piece. I’ll use a longer piece to create the scoop-bowl volume I want here, and I need to figure out some way to handle the bottom of the bowl. It’s quite rough in there, as you can see, and I’d like to clean that up without having to buy even more stuff. I think this is becoming a scoop for dry cat food, which was the suspicion I had from the beginning. And that needs to be 3/4s of a cup. But if I can get the volume right, smooth out the insides of the real piece and thin the sides and shape the bottom, I’ll have a nice piece.
Or just something else that never works quite the way I intended.
Speaking of studio things, I have been derelict in my embedding duties here in the past few days. Let’s catch up!
Here’s last week’s sports show:
And here’s a show which talks about sports, and, in this episode, the clothing of sports:
This is the morning show. They recently had witches on as guests:
And here’s the election show from the other night:
More tomorrow. Until then, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. And keep up with me on Twitter. Don’t forget my Instagram. There are also some very interesting On Topic with IU podcasts for you, as well.
I am judging high school and junior high news programs this week. There are some really talented young people out there. But we could always say that. Golly gee, kids these days!
Also, I have about 60 of these to work through, so I could say the same thing for the next few days.
Other kids these days:
Someone put a note in their calendar to look up this young man in 25-30 years and let's find out what awesome thing he's doing.
After work I stopped in at the library to pick up a book I had on hold. It’s just two blocks from the office. I walked in, strolled through the alphabetized hold shelves until I found the S area, considering the sign that said “Respect other users privacy, no browsing” until I found my name. And, being careful to not notice anyone else’s titles, I picked up my hardcover book. Oh, the joys of reading fiction. I don’t a lot, but I will over the next few days. Well, once I’m satisfied there are no cooties on the dust jacket.
There’s a self checkout. You scan your library card and input your password on the touchscreen three times. Because the first time you mess it up so convincingly you wonder if your password is, in fact, something else. Once you get that right, you just hold the book under the scanner. There’s no barcode, it just knows what book you have based on some RFID tag or a near field communication trick.
So now I’m done. Two minutes, maybe three. I did nod to someone, but didn’t have to speak to a soul. I left via the nearest door. I was on a different floor from the one where I entered. I knew that, because there was a stairwell at the beginning of this adventure. I exited on a different side of the building than where I entered. Spatially, I was aware that I would be facing a different direction from where I went in, because I’d traversed most of the place and turned left to leave. So walked around the building was no surprise, but I was, of course, still on the ground, even after that long staircase when I entered. That amused me.
Architects must delight in confusing people who aren’t paying perfect attention.
Got home, cleaned off the day, and had a nice long chat with my mom. She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. (If the extended family would take this more seriously, that would be better, but I can’t convince people of the obvious.)
We’re talking about how we can do Christmas, because Thanksgiving is basically off. Maybe we’ll Zoom over turkey leftovers. We’re going to concentrate on the small joys. Visiting is a gift, and everyone is fine and healthy.
So much Covid data to report on our campus. The weekly numbers came out today, and they ticked up ever so slightly, but they remain impressively low, especially considering the county, and particularly in comparison to the state, which is surging ahead with no headlights, brakes or seatbelts.
Also, you’ll learn in the A-block there about how IU’s testing labs are now open. They’re going to be doing something like 8,500 tests a week here now. It’s an extensive, impressive undertaking. The university has really pulled out all of the stops to look after its campus communities and help the cities they all live in. Remember, this is 100,000 students in nine campuses across the state. And while, ultimately, this is not the fall or spring semester any student — or anyone else wanted — the lengths the university is going to during a pandemic are commendable.
They did a costume feature on the pop culture show and I can’t get over how awesome minimalist M&Ms are.
If you didn’t watch that, you should. They did blindfolds and had to guess what their reporters were dressed up as. So now you’ve got gloved, masked, blindfolded hosts. It was pretty silly.
Do you ever do that thing where you start a project on your website and work on it for a while and collect all the parts the project will need and continue to work on it and then think you’re finished with it? And then come back three years later and realize you weren’t finished?
Oh, that’s just me, huh?
Well OK, then.
Guess why this building is important:
It is important because it means we must return to the historic markers section of the site. This is where I where my bicycle all over the county to find the historic signs and take pictures of them, and the place they’re highlighting. I did this one years ago, but realized only this evening, while I was cleaning some old photos from my phone, that I’d never published them.
So go check out The Gables, which is a building that now holds a restaurant, and has some important local history in it. Also, the guy that owns it is a joy, and his food is pretty good, too. It’s just up the street from my office.
Hoagy Carmichael, who is the focus of this particular historic marker, has a statue on campus, and if I had a statue project on the site it would be one of the feature attractions, because it’s an amazing statue.
And the really good news is that we can get four or five more days worth of content out of old pictures and places I’d already thought I’d addressed! So look for another historic marker update next week.
More tomorrow. Until then, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. And don’t forget my Instagram. Also, keep up with me on Twitter.
Have you ever had part of a day just vanish from memory? You know you did things, but you can’t really recall, precisely or vaguely, what those things were, even on the same day?
Welcome to my Tuesday!
I know I got up and puttered around the house and caught up on all the things I read in the news cycle and then at some point went to the office and did office things. I even held an office hour! Virtually! No one showed up.
I watched some videos and pounded out the emails and … anything else I could type about it would just be guessing at the routine. But it was there. Maybe that’s what it was fluorescent light-guided routine.
It’s a studio night for me, which reminds me to update you on some of the recent productions. And here they are now:
The spooky late night comedy show:
By the way, we learned this weekend that Not Too Late, which is the show above, earned an Honorable Mention in the national College Media Association’s Pinnacle Awards. A fine recognition, indeed. It’s a fun little program they’re building over there in Studio 5.
Meanwhile, and elsewhere … notably in Studio 7 …
Big Ten football is back and the subject of this longform talk show.
More sports! Now it feels like fall on campus:
And if you’re more of a morning person than a scary late night person, well I’m sorry we aren’t compatible in this respect, but, nevertheless, there’s a show for you as well:
And that has us all caught up on the last few days of television. I think. They also produce remote programs and social media and something like five different podcasts this semester. There’s a lot going on, is the point, even in this semester where there is, necessarily, less going on.
Forgot to mention: I updated the front page recently. Go check it out. It looks like this:
I have a several new photos I’m going to work through there. I’d like to have some random script do it, like the banners on this page. Around here, we are big fans of visual variety, as you might have noted. And the more you can automate that, the better.
Why not just use the same code?
Aren’t you a clever reader, you clever reader.
I’m tinkering with that. Maybe it’ll work. I might have to try something else to avoid breaking too many other rules on the site.
Why don’t you use javascript?
No thanks.
But —
Look, we’re trying to get away from that around here.
It’s something of an industry standard and —
Oh, believe me, construct I created just to have this conversation with myself, I know. But there’s some bloat and loading and security and some mobile-user issues and I’d just rather have a CSS and a PHP style solution, if you please.
Well, when you put it that way … why not just use the same code as this page?!?
