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history / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
17
Jan 17

The ranch we visited last weekend

So we stopped by to see some family. Which, to some of us, meant family and, to others, like me, meant new people. And very kind and interesting and happy people, too. This was after the funeral, and this was some of the local family who invited the whole large group over for a visit. This was the first sign you see:

Now think of that. Inside the house there was a framed certificate that says they ranch started in 1856. Texas was annexed in 1845, so the ranch itself is almost as old as the state. We learned that the man who originally owned the land had it longer than that before he built on it. In all that time it has stayed in that one family. Think of that.

So it turns out Texas’ Historic Farm project has been going on for some time. They recognize farms that have stayed active within one family at 100, 150 and 200 years. One press release I found said there were about 4,800 in the state that can make the century claim. In an entire state, in all of Texas, there are just a handful of farms older than this place:

Let’s think of this another way. While at the place, which still raises cattle and has at least a few horses and one very loud donkey, I met this delightful lady, a retired art teacher. I won’t guess her age, but she had one. These, she said, were her grandparents:

And they weren’t even the first people on the ranch. And the way she said it, they were’t the first ones by a good ways.

Back at work today. The semester started last week and we started shooting today. Here’s a view of the control room during the shoot:

And here I am in the studio with the What’s Up Weekly crew:

They proclaimed me the king of candid shots with that one. I’ve had worse titles.

Monday / photo / running / video — Comments Off
16
Jan 17

Oh the things I could tell you

I could tell you about the shuttle drivers we had this weekend. (They were each great in their own ways. The first because she was enthusiastic and opinionated and talkative and honey this and darlin’ that. And the second because he was waiting just for us and took us directly to the car and then told us which way to go to avoid the new toll on the bridge.) I could tell you about the six-and-a-half miles I ran today in the fog. (It was slow and I’m still not a very good runner.) I could tell you about one book I just finished and another I started. (One was fiction, the rare piece of the genre I read and, thus, a real guilty pleasure. The other is a historical collection, and we’ll get into it at a later date.) I could talk about a lot of things, I suppose.

But I have a picture of The Yankee with a horse:

And we also met a donkey this weekend:

That was at the ranch, which I’ll tell you a bit about tomorrow. But, first, there is a video of the sky:

And, tomorrow, we’ll talk about a historic farm.

family / Friday / photo — Comments Off
13
Jan 17

We come to sing true praises

We buried my step-grandmother today. This is my step-father’s mom and she was just a gem of a human being. A lovely Southern lady, through and through. She lived a full life and was independent, and fiercely so, right up to the end. She still traveled, alone, at 92. And to know her was to be charmed by her and to be charmed by her was to be a person who said something like “I hope I’m like her at that age.”

The pastor gave a nice little service and then Rick, my step-father, stood up and talked about his mother. And in front of a room full of people that had known him his whole life and her their whole lives, he really painted the picture well. Her niece talked and then a nephew. A former college professor colleague of hers (she taught English and reading) and a friend of hers spoke about her as well. It was a celebration, which is what they had wanted. There was a reception afterward. And then we all took a long drive so that she could return to the place from where she came, surrounded by her family again. And in that there was a little history lesson for the family, too.

Another preacher offered a graveside service and it was lovely and somewhere in all of this someone had this great notion that essentially said our elders give us love and we repay them with joy and happiness. And that seems like something you really would hope is true.

It was cold, but the rain had stopped. We placed our pall bearer flowers on the coffin. Right after the service concluded this large flock of birds that had been just a bit away in the cemetery, the size of which you don’t often see anymore, decided to start singing and flew off to the west. We heard them all, and I managed to catch the last few on my phone.

I saw this on her porch yesterday, and if there’s ever been a more apt thing said about a person or her philosophy on garden decor, I don’t know what it would be.

“O, Tiger-Lily, I wish you could talk!” says Alice in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass.’

“We can talk,” the flower says, “when there’s anybody worth talking to.”

And she was one of those, because she wanted to listen to everything, because she was interested in everything. The thing about people that invite you into their circles — and I’ve had some experience with this — is that when they welcome you in you don’t often want to leave. And she was good about that, bringing you in, making you feel welcomed and the center of things. So it is with the rest of her clan. Near the cemetery is a family ranch, and we went there for a visit. It was more of the family, and more neat history that we got to learn about. I’ll write a few things about that next week.

family / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
12
Jan 17

To fine Southern ladies

We were standing in a viewing room in this fancy Texas funeral home. Fanciest one you’ve ever been to, probably. My mother and stepfather had let the grandchildren in. There are four of us. I was the step-grandchild and the oldest and whatever else I was and I was standing back there behind the grandkids as they looked at their grandmother. I watched them thinking whatever they thought as our folks left the room and after a while I finally said this thing that I’d been thinking about all day.

The thing I’ve learned in the last few years is that the thing about grandmothers, or any person that has that much importance in your life, is that no matter what has happened or what will happen or what you might imagine for yourself later, they are still there. She’s still around you and with you. The things she tried to teach you and the good times she showed you and the lessons she really hoped you’d learn, they’re all still there. She’s always still going to be with you as an influence and a guide. That’s the great thing about the people that are important to you. They always stay with you. There comes a time, in your own time, when that occurs to you. And that is a really, really, really comforting thought.

It had come to me just today. It had taken me almost two-and-a-half years to figure that out and I think I needed to hear it as much as I wanted to say it.

Two of my grandmothers. (The way my family tree works I’ve had a handful of amazing grandmothers and great-grandmothers.) Dortha, my step-grandmother, is on the left. Bonnie, my mother’s mother who remains one of the most important people in my life, and impacts all of my big decisions, even still, is on the right. This was taken on a trip they made with my folks to the Butchart Gardens in Canada in 2014.

I wonder what flowers they might discuss now.

basketball / Friday / IU / photo / video — Comments Off
6
Jan 17

She shoots …

No, this was not spooky at all this morning:

My office has the three coat hooks behind the door. I’m not sure why there are three. It is a small office — just me in here — and it surely won’t get three-coats-cold. But it has been plenty chilly the last few days. So gloves and a scarf came to work today, as did the heavy leather jacket. And so I used all the hooks. Didn’t want any of them to be left out, lest the mishape a coat, so I used them all and created an unholy beast.

But at least its a warm and inviting one.

Here’s something else a bit weird. In the microwave the cook sensor found something it didn’t like last night:

Oh, sure, we made scissors jokes and Big Lebowski jokes and then this morning I noticed the other corner of the clock display. Clearly the magnetron inside knows something is wrong. You wonder if the cathode or the anode has the bigger problem with cooking toes.

(I had to read a bit about magnetrons to make a joke, so it seemed like there should be some internal conflict there.)

This morning, Allie is securing the perimeter from birds:

The Yankee put a bird feeder right outside that window and it seems to be working for everyone. This is the morning routine now: push a hooman (me) off the bed, enjoy the heated blanket for an extra half hour after he gets up, set up camp guarding the library windows from the offensive birds.

Those birds are a morning problem. They don’t seem to be an issue later in the day.

She does a great job keeping the birds outside.

At work we got to tour the Cuban Center at Assembly Hall. There’s a giant green screen room and some high end broadcasting gear going in. They are building up facilities to run all of the video screens in the athletic facilities from there. The original scoreboards are on display outside of the newly renovated gym. Inside the actual court there are 28 cameras making the new FreeD technology. You’ve seen this, the cameras in certain venues where you can see a key play in the game from a revolving series of angles.

It takes two people to run, a pilot and a navigator, and right now there are 11 people in the world that know how to do this.

Eleven. That’s the legitimate number. And if you want to get into the technology, IU is the only place in the world to do it. Soon, major soccer leagues and Major League Baseball will have this technology in all of their stadiums. And it all started with a small Israeli company, recently purchased by Intel, and the Cuban Center here at IU.

Also, being Indiana, there’s basketball, of course:

By transitive properties The Yankee is now a five-time national champion.