Wednesday

cycling / IU / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on They didn’t just stand there and wait
10
Aug 22

They didn’t just stand there and wait

Here’s a bit of my bike ride to the office this morning. It was gray and not overly warm and somehow that made everything seem a bit slower and quiet. Maybe just knowing the quiet is coming to an end, and that far too quickly, made it seem like a quieter morning.

Classes start the week after next. This is the last big, deep breath before the regular routine returns.

I rode my bike back the same way this afternoon. For just a brief moment, one of those idle lower brain thoughts that makes it to the surface around the filters, I thought the same people I saw this morning might be there this afternoon. How neat to see them all again.

They weren’t, of course. Because they are elsewhere in the Truman Show.

When they get around to remaking that, they should go the real psychological thriller route. And if that’s somehow informed by Groundhog Day, and grounded in really normally inscrutable things, more the better, and more unnerving.

Time for our daily check on the Poplars Building. Built in the 1960s as an off-campus dormitory, but failed in that role and as a sorority house. Also as a hotel. And a “research and conference center.” It’s last duty was as administrative offices for the university. (The pool was filled in and became Human Resources.) Some 400 people could work in Poplars.

This month it is being scraped to death.

They made some good progress today. If you use the window rows as metrics, they’re getting one or two of those each day. Given the way it was built you have to think they can hold that pace pretty consistently. What we can’t see are the lowest parts, obscured here by the parking deck.

It is interesting, but I’m not terribly interested in walking over there and breathing in that stuff knowing, as we do now, about old building materials in the air.

Anyway, the deck is staying, but also being rehabbed. They waited until this summer to do that, rather than anytime in the preceding two years when almost no one was parking there. But, now, of a sudden, the parking lots are full, and the deck is closed “until the fall,” we’re told.

Anyway, the Poplars Building is going to be a green space for a time, until such time as someone has the time to figure out a better thing for the space.

I’m sure that fellow wasn’t on the path this evening because he was catching up on The Daily Show. He looked like a Daily Show guy, didn’t he? In that brief glimpse you saw of him? Daily Show guy, definitely, right?

There’s a needle to thread in comedy like this. Probably two or three needles to be threaded, each with smaller eyes. But The Daily Show had 10 good minutes.

I’m guessing the comic work will be better this week than in subsequent weeks. Legal processes just aren’t that funny. But this is pretty good, as is Trevor Noah’s impression of the former president’s stage style is informative.

And don’t call it a raid.

adventures / cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on I am a spokes-person
27
Jul 22

I am a spokes-person

This evening we had a one-hour training ride. I sprinted up the first little hill as I always do, and … that was it. My legs and my lungs lost interest for the next several miles. About five of them, to be precise. The Yankee got ahead of me, and I rallied over the next 15 miles. I (truly and sincerely) rode as fast as I’ve ever ridden a half-hour.

I could not catch her wheel. Could not bridge the gap. Couldn’t even keep her in sight.

This is just after a turn around point in the route. She had turned and I was approaching the turn. The timing suggested I wasn’t far behind, which was good, because I already had it figured.

#GoRenGo

There were two little sections of the return route where I would have a chance to catch back up. Two roads that suit my ride a little more than hers.

If I couldn’t do it in one of those two places my only chance was if she got caught in traffic — people here aren’t especially good at intersections and they absolutely freeze up when you add a cyclist into the mix.

Have you ever had this sensation? Your bike feels like it’s floating over everything. Not la volupté, but the sense that your tires are about a quarter inch off the road, when your bike is anticipating the bumps and cracks and turns. Ever felt that? Your legs feel like they are behind you and charging, rather than beneath you driving. Have you ever experienced that? I get it once, maybe twice a year. I assume it is because I’m having a day of nice form. The numbers supported that hypothesis a bit today, as this became one of those days. I was impressed by my splits, but I was still not fast enough.

So watch out, USA Triathlon National Championships. She’s coming for you. And she’ll be fast.

Then she did a one-mile run. (Because I am not training for the national triathlon championships, I got to stay inside.)

adventures / Covid-19 / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on The show doesn’t always go on
20
Jul 22

The show doesn’t always go on

We were going out for a frivolous experience. An adventure! Adventures are very necessary. They vary in scope and scale and, as such, grand gestures or big activities do not an adventure make. The best adventures are the smallest ones, generally speaking. And most anything is an adventure in the right company. But today’s was to be a frivolous experience. This would, by my count, be the sixth since the pandemic began. We’re on two hands now!

This is a cornfield we passed today.

Our frivolous experience was canceled. Covid.

Fortunately not us, but someone in the show. We went to Cincinnati to see Barenaked Ladies again. You’ll recall we saw them a few weeks ago in Indianapolis, it was a fine show, had a great time. (I sprinkled video here over the next week, if you’d like to scroll back in time.) Soon after that, The Yankee found some re-sell tickets for cheap. We drove over to Ohio. Guy working in the parking booth at the venue told us the news.

And sure enough, there it was. The word had come down, it just had not caught up to us.

So we spent the evening down by the river, near the baseball stadium, enjoying the warm weather and the park. Got a bite to eat and headed back to Bloomington around 9 p.m. Some of the clouds we saw on the drive back.

It was not the adventure we planned, but it was a great adventure nevertheless.

Saw this at the rest stop. Anyone have any idea what this is meant to do?

Also at the rest stop … Do you ever read rules, or signs, and think, This is about a specific incident? This is about a specific incident. Surely.

We didn’t get the concert, but there’ll be another, at another time. The one we just saw was a 2020 date, twice-rescheduled. This one, I guess, is a 2020 date that will eventually be thrice-rescheduled.

They named this, in at least 2019, the Last Summer on Earth Tour. I wonder if they’ve rethought that at any point.

Since we didn’t see it tonight, here’s the encore from July 1st. Barenaked Ladies closing the show with Toad the Wet Sprocket and Gin Blossoms.

We’ll see them again. Soon, hopefully. Because the 90s will never end, I guess.

adventures / cycling / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Nat sound included
13
Jul 22

Nat sound included

The Yankee asked me to shoot a video of her on our bike ride this evening. So that took precedence of my other video plans. She was making a video and needed some B-roll, but she gave me carte blanche. So I settled on a clip of her going by me. Which means I had to be in front of her. And I decided, for some poorly oxygenated reason, to do this in a place where I’ve never taken any footage of her before.

Which means I had to stay ahead. And then I had to wait for her to come by.

But this is the sound I hear when she goes by.

I did set a PR on one Strava segment, though, and spent the entire rest of the ride, from that moment, trying to catch back up to her. Finally I did, but only on our street.

adventures / cycling / music / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Which song will get stuck in my head?
6
Jul 22

Which song will get stuck in my head?

My lovely bride told me I shouldn’t put this into the world, but the forecast was for 107 degrees, and we didn’t hit that mark. So I taunted the weather. She said the weather would make me regret it. She’s really thinking of everyone else. Like I want it to be 107 degrees.

This was plenty. I’m not as young as I used to be.

More music from last Friday’s show! Here are a few clips from Barenaked Ladies, who were the headliners.

“It’s All Been Done” hit number one in Canada and landed in the top 10 in the US.

BNL’s live show comes with a lot of comedy and a bit of ad libbing and the occasional freestyle moment.

The song about pinching is a big hit.

There are also singalongs in a BNL show.

Here’s a newer tune. “Man Made Lake” was on last year’s Detour

There are classics, of course, and covers, too. We’ll get to some of those tomorrow.

No one is going to talk about this enough, but Wout van Aert had the most amazing ride in the Tour de France today. It was on the cobbles. He’d captured the yellow leader’s jersey, and was a favorite for stage five. And then it all went wrong. And then it went sideways and bananas. And then Wout van Aert showed his mettle.

He crashed once and narrowly avoided crashing into a team car. After he recovered from all of that, his team had the worst day imaginable and he had to drop back to save them. It seemed a sacrifice of the yellow jersey. But Wout is the strongest rider in the best field in the world. Here are the highlights.

So after his crash, and a near-crash, and animating the race, and giving that up to save his team’s two overall contenders, Wout van Aert still managed to narrowly hang on to the maillot jaune. He’ll give it up in the next day or two, and people won’t really appreciate his ride today as they should, but it was epic.

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