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Monday / photo / running / video — Comments Off on And how was your Monday?
10
Feb 20

And how was your Monday?

Did I mention it snowed this weekend? Had a bit Saturday. We ran through flurries on Saturday, and around some leftovers. There has to be a name for that pesky bit that never disappears because there’s no direct sunlight because there’s no sun, right?

Look! Here’s proof we ran in temperatures supporting snow.

I think this can also serve as the marker of the day when I decided I’m over running in the cold for the winter. This dovetails with my desire for spring, which is arriving just on schedule. According to the many decades of my keen observation, that should be kicking in next week, if I lived in a sensible place. But here, it’ll be two more months. First there will be a fake weekend of spring, and then it’ll snow into April with the sole purpose of demoralizing us all. But while it isn’t spring, I’m ready for spring. And I’m ready to run in spring, which means my outdoors activities might get a bit selective in the coming days, because we won’t see 40 again until next weekend.

(But, if you give me something in the low 50s I’m going to go for a bike ride, and I won’t even wear all the winter stuff. Just some of it.)

We had a bit more snow on Sunday. It was the best kind. It was big, fast and arrived with minimal adhesion properties. Looked nice in the video though:

At the grocery store this morning, one item of note:

They’re changing the design on the packaging. I’m not going to get into a breakdown of this sort of thing. There are people who do it at great length, with a zeal that puts them between completist and exhaustive. And they probably do it much better than I could. But the new design, on top, is worse than the old one. I go to this grocery store for two items and this is one of them. The other item recently went through a label redesign, too, and I have only so much bandwidth to dedicate to visual identification. Designers, keeping this in mind, keep the changes relatively small, which somehow makes them more significant.

The new orientation of the pastries gives away the game: it’s the same pop tart. I already miss the motion of the flavor banner, and the backlight-style treatment of the branding. Except for the font used for the pastry count. That’s an improvement. Going from two strawberries to one, though, seems the wrong move. The whole thing seems the wrong move.

But that’s a Monday. And, hey, as Mondays go, that’s about the worst of it for me. Which is nice. And I got it out of the way first thing in the morning, which is better. And it didn’t snow today, so there’s also that. And we might see the sun later this week. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

IU / journalism / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on There’s a lot to watch, only a little to read
6
Feb 20

There’s a lot to watch, only a little to read

I think these two items work together nicely.

That tweet is framed politely, the report spreads the condemnation a fair bit. Which is easy to do, there are many fingers to point in many directions. But, ultimately, everything seems to follow the rule of gravity, and point downward. Lowest common denominators being what they are.

Full day in the office, followed by several hours in the studio. So there’s not a lot here. (Initially I wrote lout, which was more typographical error than subliminal message, but I fortunately caught it just in time.) I do have some video from the studio, however. Tuesday night we watched the news:

And they made white chocolate strawberries, which may be the way to go there, it turns out:

Tonight was sports:

So many sports:

I hope that’ll keep you for now. We’ll try to do better next Thursday, and at least a few of the days in between. See you tomorrow, then, right?

Instagram / IU / memories / Tuesday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Caucus captaincy for sale
4
Feb 20

Caucus captaincy for sale

It’s turned cold again. And these are the days of our lives. Probably for the best. If you start having enjoyable weather for three days in a row you’d come to expect it, and you really should know better to do that here until mid-April.

Which is depressing.

Sunday’s and, to a lesser degree, yesterday’s weather, were nothing more than an aberration.

Which is also disconcerting.

There’s a lot going on here:

The carefully selected handwriting. This is the sort of thing that’s discussed before it’s done, right? “No one could read my handwriting,” and so on. Then there’s the frowny face. And the first-person. It has grown self-aware. And is sad. Now, is the sadness brought about by the existential dilemma of being a soda dispenser? Is the sadness because the dispenser knows this isn’t her fault, but is rather a faulty hose somewhere between here and the syrup? Maybe the grief comes because it knows a manager — the third shift leader in charge of liquid refreshments — forgot to fill that order.

Or maybe there’s a legal issue. It wouldn’t be the first time. Forty-some years ago Barqs was sold outside of the family, but the heirs, the Robinsons still had some companies with the Barq’s name and so the trademark battles began. The 5th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the family, so it was the root beer’s new owners that were out of order and … here we are.

I just learned that some of the fountain drink versions of Barq’s has no caffeine, which, as I understand it, is the point. But is it any good? I mean relative to other root beers? You’ll have to let me know.

It is the beginning of the other Super Bowl season. Iowa is caucusing and it’s simultaneously a silly demonstrating of nominating candidates and fascinating for journalists. The election is like the Super Bowl, so I suppose this is the first of several weeks of wildcard playoffs or something.

I slept in my car on the night of the 2000 general election, and that was just covering the local stuff. I dozed off listening to the networks being fed to AM radio and went back inside the studio (they didn’t let us sleep in there, for some reason) for my first hit of the morning and saw the same national network guys still plodding through. I’m not sure which of us had a better night, but I know they looked better than I did. And we, somehow, have convinced ourselves this is a good thing.

I don’t have any strong memories from election night, 2004. I sat in a newsroom in shivered in 2008 and convinced a bunch of student-journalists that, maybe, they should go get some reactions. In 2012, more shivering. In 2016 I watched everyone else do things. But I digress.

Tonight, I’m going to sleep long before anything is decided in the confusion that is Iowa. Iowa is confusing in a good cycle, and it is given outsized weight relative to its importance. That’s the media’s fault, really. And everything else is from a bunch of people gathering in gyms and people’s homes and wherever else and using what is, apparently, a poorly designed app.

What could possibly go wrong? Everything tonight, it seems. But I’m not staying up to watch it all. I’m not convinced that is a good thing.

We did television tonight. I recorded a little bit of it. Sure, I’m standing in a studio with five high-definition cameras, four of them controlled remotely from the adjacent control room (there was also a sixth high def camera working at this moment, as well, as we’d gone meta) and I’m holding my phone up at eye level …

This is one of the podcast series I want to do: New things shape ongoing disciplines. Think anyone will want to not want to do this one with me, too?

More on Twitter and check me out on Instagram as well.

Monday / running / Twitter / video — Comments Off on My quads, though
3
Feb 20

My quads, though

Well, that was beautiful. Yesterday, I mean. Sunny. Warm. The sort of day where you go outside bracing for one season and are left to marvel that you’ve somehow been transported to an entirely different season. Or that your human notions of space-time are finite and limited. Or that a different weather system has moved into your region. One of those things. Definitely the second one.

Anyway, it hit 62 degrees, so I ran 6.2 miles. And, in the breeze, there was a tumbling tumble-crape myrtle.

I walked outside to run and heard that thing scratching its way down the street. So, of course, I had to follow it a while. It left the road once, and went deep into someone’s yard before stopping, such was the breeze. I retrieved it, put it back in the middle of the road and it blew around some more. I’d managed to walk five or six houses down the road before I decided I had enough footage to make that oh-so-compelling video. You can cover a pretty decent distance if you’re busy staring in a viewfinder. Or at your phone screen. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Just a lovely run. Started too strong. Stayed fast. I dropped almost five minutes off of my last 10K over the same course. And I thought that one felt good. It must be the shoes.

Now I just need them to make me fast.

So it was sunny and warm yesterday. Today it was almost warm and overcast, so I only ran a 5K today, faster than I have in a good long while. And now I’ll let my legs rest a bit.

Are we padding this out with tweets? We are padding this out with tweets.

Friday / journalism / links / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Winter snow on Friday
31
Jan 20

Winter snow on Friday

Just three short-long months ago I stood outside and shivered while pumping gas and watching the snow. It was notable because it was Halloween and three long-short months ago. And now, today …

To be fair and just, which we always are on the Internet, it has been a mild winter so far. You shouldn’t say things like that, because even with the qualifier “so far” you imply that it is over. It is not over. If you used the “… so far” formulation that’d look ominous, like you were going for drama or fright night. Which might be appropriate, or overwrought. It’s weather, so it is difficult to tell. And if there’s one thing that we know is not allowed on the Internet, it is the inappropriate jumping to conclusions or an overwrought and emotional reaction.

We’re going to have sunny skies (for a change) and the low 60s on Sunday. Winter will, no doubt, return in short order.

Anyway, cold, slow day today. I suppose the two might be correlated. Probably not, but it’s an easy connection to make, and that’s really what the Internet is for.

The following things aren’t related, but they are two signs of these times. Not all of the times, but, indeed some of them.

Somehow, I thought there’d be more of a ceremony, or at least done after hours. Anything to keep it from looking this pitiful.

Locally, the newspaper, which has been a part of two corporate transactions under recent moons, is losing it’s local printing operation.

This is how it continues. We’re well past how it begins. The printing will take place up in Indianapolis. It isn’t far, but it’ll mean a few professionals will lose their jobs locally. And this local paper will be put in a queue with the bigger Indianapolis Star, whatever other papers and contract jobs must be done. Then the design of the actual papers will be moved out. You’ll see, or perhaps you are already seeing where you are, formulaic layouts done by specialists who are trying to crank out two more front pages before their lunch break. It consolidates jobs, and the technology helps, but it compresses the work. We see papers that fall into formulas and a lot, a lot, gets lost along the way. A bit of institutional knowledge here, local history and importance there.

Perhaps it matters less these days. Newspapers, sad to say, have a reduced importance because they have a reduced readership. This isn’t pure nostalgia. Part of it is, sure, but there’s a lot to be said about the function that a truly healthy newspaper can provide to its community. I believe in that more fervently than I do in a newspaper. I’ve always been married more to the ideal of the service, the function, the role, than the medium. It just so happens that well-attended newspapers are, or were, the best medium we had for that. This isn’t chicken-or-the-egg stuff, but it feels like it. The economics of the industry are such that closing presses is the next step in trying to keep something solvent, for a time, before the inevitable selloffs take place. When Warren Buffett is getting out …

This is how it continues.

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