Welcome to December, and the encroaching color of the season! It is … dunh da dunh dunh da daaaaaaa!
It was just everywhere today. Couldn’t be helped. Whoever was painting today only had one color in their palette. Whoever was lighting the day only had reflecting screens. Whoever wrote this day spent four or five solid hours debating between “gray” and “grey.”
Today, it was gray. As we move on, we’ll go to the more conventional spelling.
It doesn’t look grey yet. But it will.
But don’t let that weather fool you. It was a lovely day, otherwise. Spirits were high! Good times were in the air! We had a lovely night in the studio and a full day around the building before that. And when I went home, sometime after 8 p.m., I got to head into a long, long weekend. The skies were low, morale is actually very high!
You just couldn’t see it because of my mask.
The daily duds: Pictures of clothes I put here to, hopefully, help avoid embarrassing scheme repeats. And isn’t this an interesting coincidence …
I slept in until 9 a.m. this morning, which was lovely. I could get used to not having an alarm. I’ve spent the day puttering around the house, which would get old before too long, I’m sure. But I haven’t gotten anything accomplished today, which will be old by Friday.
I did record a podcast last night. Talked to a former student for a new show I’m rolling out after the first of the year. So that takes care of two days of productivity, I suppose.
OK, the lack of accomplishing thing kicked in just now. So I’ve beaten my tolerance prediction by two days. That, in a way, is an achievement, right?
No wonder I’m a bit tired.
One last thing from my Monday visit to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center. Have you ever heard a lion roar? I had not. They say the sound can be heard up to five miles away. That seems unrealistic, until you hear it. We heard two lions and some lionesses. And now I believe it. You’d absolutely hear this miles away. And if you heard it in the wild it would definitely hold your attention. Anyway, they’re showing off here.
There’s a little clip of a lion, a bit of a lioness, and the third clip is just a silent bit of watching the lion walk around. This was a unique experience. Turn on your audio and press play.
These are all rescued animals. They’ve never been in the wild. And they have a good life here. The only part I don’t like is hearing about how the animals came to them. Some of them have terribly sad backstories. But they are well looked after, and it’s obvious and apparent the passion the staff have for the animals in their charge.
If you didn’t see them, I shared some high quality photos of the tigers and lions on Monday and again yesterday.
I started my winter indoor cycling season on Saturday. It was an easy 20 mile ride, averaging 19 miles per hour, with 535 feet of ascent. Pedestrian numbers, but it felt great considering how long I’ve been off my bike — for no reason whatsoever. The ride was in the Makuri Islands, which is a fictional Zwift locale. The part at the end looks something like this.
I finished in eighth in one of the sprints, which is weird. I am not a sprinter.
On Tuesday we rode in Watopia, one of the classic Zwift routes. It was a quick 16 mile ride and I set two Strava PRs. No one cares, but the route looks like this.
And today we did a few loops around London. Clearly that’s the Thames. I was looping Westminster and Belgravia and maxed out at 37.3 miles per hour.
But, if I say 60 kilometers an hour, it sounds like something serious. All the metrics say I maxed out at 1,276 watts and averaged 20.9 miles per hour. I’m slow.
Oh, here’s a sports thing. It’s Thanksgiving, of course, and the students have the whole week off, but my friend Ta Lao is still producing good stuff.
Ta talks to IU’s goalkeeper about his amazing year and, at 3:20, that save. That sequence was number one on Sportscenter’s Top 10 that evening, and I’m still in awe of it. And you can see it, right there in that video.
Ta is an IUSTV beat reporter for men’s soccer, which is in the national championship tournament yet again. He also published today an interview with the team’s head coach and one of the young players. He also covers soccer in his native Thailand and runs podcasts and a video channel and who knows what else. Oh, and he’s also a student. The guy is tireless.
It helps to be tireless in student media. It’s almost a prerequisite.
After which I re-read the first three paragraphs on this post and laughed.
I showed off the famous fall foliage parking deck shot last Tuesday. So it seems only fitting to revisit that for a close-up shot. Here is our close-up.
That’s not too bad, is it?
Here’s the view from inside the building. I like to tell prospective students and their parents about our brand new 114-year-old building. Some of the things in it are original. And they added some things in the renovation before we opened it up again as the Media School in 2016. This skylight, I tell them, is original.
It is not. And that’s my first laugh of a mini-tour. Hahah! Modern skylight fits right in with the older design! And also the elevator beneath it, too!
Those panes of glass are about two-and-a-half inches thick. And we can control their tint, though we seldom take it off the auto settings. That’s fun, sometimes, too, when the clouds are really blowing by. You can be standing there under all of that glass and sudden the whole room changes. You wonder if it’s neurological or technological, every time.
All of that glass weighs the same as about nine Volkswagen Beetles. So I don’t stand under it for too long, I tell visitors. Hahah! Another joke! This is going to be a great tour!
And that’s about where I stop telling jokes.
There might be another joke in there somewhere, I’m not sure. I haven’t given a tour in ages. Not that I miss them. I was never quite sure why I got asked to do them from time-to-time. I only had the two jokes.
Today’s look, an old Thomas Pink shirt, an old V&C tie and a new pocket square.
All of that under my 2009 Canadian poppy, for Remembrance Day and Veteran’s Day.
Back int he studio tonight, with the sports gang. We’ll have some of their shows to enjoy later this week. For now, we can take in the news shows, which were produced last night. See the pattern?
This is the news show, and that’s another freshman on the desk. They’re building for the future and the future is now. Pretty cool to see that happening.
Here’s the pop culture show. They shoot these two shows back-to-back. To their credit, they’ve turned that into a smooth operation lately.
And here’s a sports show that got posted online today. It’s produced in another studio, and out in the field. This show is full of underclassmen, just taking the ball and running with it, so to speak.
That’s part of the tour, too, when I give it. Enroll here, show up, get involved right away. It’s amazing what you can do right away. Right away is the only way.
It was a pretty day out there. A nice fall chill in the air. But lovely all the same, if you stayed in the sunshine.
I stayed indoors. It’s a studio day, and I spent four-and-a-half hours in various studios. And the rest of the day, seemingly, on phone meetings or in meetings about phone calls.
It passes the time, I suppose.
Funny how some of it seems to move slowly, and some more quickly, but it all goes fast. And faster in retrospect. Except for the slow parts.
Time is relative, is what we’re saying. We all agree to that. Time is relative to all of us. I just don’t know who it is related to.
Maybe time is the neighbor or colleague or partner that you see every day. Steady, slow, certain, and therein difficult to see the changes. Or maybe time is that cousin you see at reunions and every other annual holiday. The one that stands out in sudden changes compared to the memories, both fleeting and lasting. The half-shocked “He’s getting old,” is more autobiographical that way, whether we know it or not.
It was a sports night in the studio. I also helped out with one of the classes and then taught a student about the audio studios. And I have nothing to show for any of that. At least until the sports shows land on the web tomorrow.
Today, though, I can show you the news shows, which were shot last night. We had a freshman on the desk for News Source. He did a fine job for his first time out. I’m excited to watch him progress.
Here’s the pop culture show, which, as a production, is running quite smoothly these days.
And we’ll have some sports for you in this space tomorrow!
It was a leave-at-8:45-dinner-at-9-and-straight-to-bed sort of day. Tomorrow is coming quick.
Today’s look, which I put here in the hopes that I’ll look back and avoid repeating it again too soon …
Autumnal! And getting old, too. This pocket square is one of my oldest, only coming out in a certain season. Another example of a slow-moving measure of time. It’s more autobiographical that way.
I took this photo yesterday of a westerly-facing tree outside of our television studios and didn’t share it with you. Shame on me. The light was catching it so nicely, and everything. So here’s the westerly-facing tree.
Trees, of course, face all directions. That’s the sort of useful information that you keep coming back here for, I know.
And also this insight, a phrase I coined today, but a feeling that has long been on the mind of any expert who has ever talked about their craft to a non-expert.
Shortcuts used shouldn’t always be the shortcuts taught.
It had to do with a conversation about writing, and the root of it is the cliche, you have to know the rules so you can break the rules.
Or “learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist,” which is often attributed to Pablo Picasso, or “know the rules well, so you can break them effectively,” as the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso supposedly said. (And hasn’t the web ruined us on standalone quotes? I no longer believe anyone said anything, but that everything was said by Abraham Lincoln quoting Calvin Coolidge.)
I’m pretty sure I learned the theme from my algebra teacher, of all people. Learn the rules to break the rules. And that’s what algebra was like for me.
How I got through calculus and trig is something of an open mystery.
More time in the television studio tonight. It was the sports crew shooting tonight, and those shows will start to come online tomorrow.
Here are the news shows from yesterday, though. All the local that is news, and all the news that is local …
And the Halloween-themed show that I teased here yesterday …
Why do trees face all directions? It’s a question of survival to be prosperous. Tree branches grow to give the most leaves the most light, because light means they can run photosynthetic process. The rest is us being misanthropomorphic.
