cycling / history / journalism / Monday — Comments Off on Happy Valentine’s Day
14
Feb 22

Happy Valentine’s Day

I finally got to try my new bike shoes this weekend. To recap, I bought these on Monday …

And I decided on Monday evening, to my great frustration, that I needed to get new cleats. The gray ones you see here are the old ones. The new ones are black and yellow. They arrived on Thursday, I think, and I installed them and, most importantly, they clipped in properly to my pedals. I do not understand the old problem. The problem has been corrected, I have moved on.

So, yesterday, I got to do this.

And I went faster than I’ve ever gone on that particular course. Two loops, felt easy. It must be the shoes. (Probably it was a lot of rest in my legs.)

These are the earlier model and, thus, less expensive version of the Torch line. The 2.0 cost about $50 more and boast a stiffer carbon sole — meaning a more efficient power transfer. Surely that doesn’t apply to a duffer like me.

But it felt yesterday like it might apply. I’ll try to keep that in mind in 10,000 miles or so.

Anyway, the fictional place I rode was not over the ocean. The islet Zwift uses is in the Solomons. There is one village there, the internet tells me, but no roads.

I wonder if I can talk my lovely bride into a Valentine’s Day ride.

Let’s go back 50 years and down to Selma. It’s the Times Journal, which traces its origins back to 1827. Started life as the Courier, had its press burned during the Civil War, later through a series of mergers it became the Times Messenger, then the Times-Argus, the Selma Times and the Morning Times. Then, in 1920, the paper merged with the Selma Journal to become the Selma Times-Journal, a historically great local paper. Let’s see what was happening in 1972.

Coal strike in Britain was shutting down about eight million jobs. Bombings in Belfast, Nixon prepping for his historic trip to China, and a few bussing stories make the front page next to that rather anonymous standalone Valentine.

Oh, isn’t this a sweet photo on page three.

They did not last. John died in Illinois, in 2008, and was survived by another wife, who he’d only recently married. Carolyn died in south Alabama in 2006 and was also survived by another husband. That man, who doesn’t figure into this newspaper at all, helped design the plaque placed on the moon in 1969. (Her widower died just last year.) But the two above did, perhaps, get married. The names of surviving children in their obituaries match.

The first woman to graduate from AU in building construction.

She passed away last month. In her working life she contributed to projects at Florida Southern College; the University of Florida; the Cathedral of St. Luke in Orlando and Disney World. It’s no small thing to have your work create something people will value long after you’re gone.

An inside editorial.

Good. I’m glad we fixed that.

Oh, this is just lovely. Mom had never been able to cheer him on in a college game, and she surprised him here. He posted 22 points and 15 boards that night.

Nate earned two masters degrees, was a chaplain in the Air Force, worked his way up to becoming Col. Nate Crawford, retiring to Florida in 2006. He’s still down there, as far as I can tell. One of his sons went to the same military academy a generation later.

A half-page double truck ad that starts on page six.

This is 1972, but forced air wasn’t a mystery. How should you use your heater? Turn the heat up until you’re comfortable. Note the temperature on the thermostat. Repeat as needed.

Oh, on the next page:

I grew up with Louie the Lightning Bug (he was developed in 1983, and I had a sweeeeeet glow-in-the-dark Louie shirt.) And though I know of Reddy Kilowatt historically, I was a bit startled to see him here, in 1972. Turns out he declined in usage in the 70s and after. Fuel shortages hurt the mascots first, it seems.

Finally, on the back page.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Friday / IU / photo / podcast / television / video — Comments Off on To the weekend
11
Feb 22

To the weekend

I was thinking about a passage from Romans, because I recently heard the expression “speaking things into existence.” I’m all for visualization, but the idea behind the saying is at odds with that one part of Romans, chapter four.

And so it was that I was in a meeting with students this morning who were tired and quiet and I thought to myself, “Are we already in spring break mode?” And then I grimaced inwardly a bit. What if you just thought that into existence?

Spring Break is four weeks away. And when that mindset hits, well, everyone is counting the days.

Left that meeting to go to the studio. They were shooting their own version of The Dating Game for Valentine’s Day. Left the studio to go into another studio. Someone is doing an interview and that requires a podcast and that requires a crash course running a mixing board.

And I made it back to the first studio in time to watch this interview. They’re highlighting a short film.

And I learned her film was given an honorable mention at Cannes. Student projects recognized at Cannes! It is easy to be impressed around here.

The two shows they shot today will be out sometime next week. Until then, hang out with the sports gang. This is the highlight show they produced Wednesday, Hoosier Sports Nite.

And here’s the Superb Owl show they did. It’s get amusing.

I like when they have this much fun. It makes it me think we’re doing more than one thing right.

I keep forgetting to share this here. It’s days old now. A little over a week, in fact, but it is still timely and topical. It’s about how we come to know and trust experts and their science. Someone here is conducting studies on that. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Also, Young Frankenstein shows up.

After that, you’ll need this.

And I’ll put on the ritz by … taking a nap.

(Update: I did. It was a great idea.)

IU / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off on The symposium
10
Feb 22

The symposium

My morning was spent working on a few quixotic projects. Two of them involve depending on other people, and I can do little more than hope they come through. Some of them do, and you make do with the rest.

I’m also working on three Snapchat commercials. And there’s a sentence that would have made perfect sense to me 25 years ago when I decided to be an under-the-radar multimedia person. Except for the Snapchat part. No one would have had any appreciation of what that could be in 1997. Will anyone make any sense of it in 25 more?

Who knows! But we recruit people there, and so there is a cause to make 15 second commercials. Of course, in the shorter spots you’re asked to deliver the most. And do it in an age of widescreen everything, but on a medium that’s strictly a phone using a 9:16 aspect ratio.

Explain all of that to your 1997-self and your 1997-self would think they were dealing with someone who looked eerily like them, but older and with a blood sugar problem.

I took this picture just after noon.

And worked on this the rest of the day. There are six (SIX!) Pulitzer Prizes on this stage. I stopped counting the Peabody and Murrow and Emmy awards. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

That’s a great symposium and if you missed out on it, somehow, now’s your chance. (If you are one of the unlucky ones who can’t see the video embed, you can follow this link to see the same program on Facebook.)

There were two breaks between the three different segments of that symposium, and I cranked out social media, prepared for a Friday morning meeting and arranged an engineer for a future television production.

Left the office and did some followup work on it here at the house.

It was 10 hours, not counting the editing I did in my living room. Have you ever looked up the definition of “living room”? I haven’t, until just now. Here are two definitions.

A room in a residence used for the common social activities of the occupants.

A room in a house for general and informal everyday use.

So here we are, each typing on computers. Living room. Sounds about right.

Anyway, two simultaneous meetings and two studio sessions all taking place simultaneously, starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow. This silly week is going out in style.

We should all be so lucky.

IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Another 11 hour day
09
Feb 22

Another 11 hour day

A meeting started the morning. We discussed manually propelled water vessels. I spent much of the rest of the day writing and editing and re-writing, and also doing social media things.

Speaking of social media, which we weren’t doing at all, I decided to show off my own homemade bread!

I kid, of course. But since I had soup for lunch on Monday and Chick-fil-A takeout yesterday, it was back to the PB&J today. I thought if I made a bad homemade bread joke on Twitter I might someone game the algorithm.

Alas, the algorithm was on to me. Should have used more yeast for my sourdough.

Thankfully the sandwich held up until I could eat it at 1:30. That seems outlandish, but I didn’t have my breakfast Nutri-Grain bar until after 11. There’s a lot of rowing — meetings and doorway meetings and many emails and phone calls — to be done, you see.

I did step outside for 45 seconds to see people are more aware of sunlight than florescent light.

They are in a field production class, and I hope they got it in before the sun set on them. They were facing the west, after all.

To the studio!

They were shooting sports tonight. And outside the studio I ran into Olivia Ray, one of our alumni. She works in Indianapolis now as a sports reporter there. Graduated here five years ago and is now teaching a class. I remember critiquing her senior-year demo reel my first y ear here.

Time flies.

She met with some of today’s students, serendipitously a sports shoot. And while those shows will start to appear online tomorrow, I can show you the news shows their peers shot last night.

Everyone going the same direction here?

And now it’s pop culture time.

When it was all over my day clocked in at 10 hours and 50 minutes, but only because there wasn’t 10 more minutes of work to do today.

And another 10-plus-hour long day of rowing tomorrow, too. So dinner, dishes and bed again this eve —

Oh, I forgot to check on something last night and so I did that after the dishes and, sort of wished I hadn’t. There’s a small water problem in the bike room. So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them. After careful examination, it seems that it isn’t a leak, nor does it does it seem to be something soaking in from outside. Finally some good news. It’s an exercise or a spill problem.

So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them and will try to dry it out overnight. Lots of scrubbing and fans, basically.

cycling / IU / photo / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Today was so long I put two days in this post
08
Feb 22

Today was so long I put two days in this post

I don’t usually see this view, that time of morning, on the mornings when I’m up at that time of the morning.

Of course you wouldn’t see this. That time of day the sun doesn’t enter the house this way. The light was coming from across the way, from a parked car’s headlights. And I was up that early yesterday morning for this view.

Not really, but that was a nice perk. I had a doctor’s appointment. It was time to meet a new doctor! Each of the last three regular doctors I had all promptly left. One retired. One got out of the business entirely, the third moved out of town. I assure you, it was me. So I hoped the new person has put down roots and was in the middle of her career.

I didn’t like her very much. People always say this about their doctors. I like her, I don’t care for him. Whatever. It’s not a social thing. I’m sure if I had the occasion to visit with my mechanic we might have different interests. He probably wouldn’t like me, either. But the mechanic is good at his job, hopefully I’m decent at mine and we all hope the doctors know what they’re doing.

She decided to tell me all of the things to do correctly without ascertaining what I might be doing wrong. Which is a good way to get people to pay attention to you.

Anyway, it was a get-to-know you appointment. And we spent about 20 minutes together. I’ll probably wind up moving over to another doctor in the practice when he gets slots available. Maybe I’ll like him!

Afterward it was downstairs for a blood draw. They’ll do tests to tell me I’m in good health, generally, but could be better if I watch my this or that. My general good fortune is not lost on me.

Nearby was a bike shop, and I also need a new bike shop. Today I needed new bike shoes. So I met a guy who’s forgot more than I’ll ever know and has probably made up more than I’ve yet to learn. And he sold me these early model Specialized Torches.

I got back at lunch time, decided to have a bowl of soup for lunch, I figured, if you have the opportunity to enjoy two warm lunches in one work-week, you jump on it.

Worked the second half of the day, and then came home to try those new shoes.

Couldn’t try those new shoes. Because, somehow, the cleats and the pedals aren’t working. Oh, I tried for a while, got frustrated and then went upstairs, ordered new cleats and, thinking of the rest of the week ahead, called it an early night. The new ones will arrive in the middle of the week, just in time for me to use them next weekend.

That was yesterday. Today I was in the office early to give a tour. Not my normal job, but sometimes it falls to me, and this one fell to me late the night before. This tour made me late for a meeting, which concluded so that many of the same participants could have another meeting.

In the afternoon I had two more meetings stacked on top of one another. The first was brief and productive. The second was long and creative and, hopefully, productive.

And, this evening, it was time to go to the studio. Two news shows tonight. They’ll be online tomorrow, or soon after. But, for now, I can catch you up on stuff the sports gang shot last week.

Here are the highlights!

And here’s a talk show about the Winter Olympics.

These shows seem like a long time ago. I blame the snow. And that they produced them six days ago. I kept for forgetting to share them here with the second half of the week being so disjointed. Again, the snow.

Anyway, it was an 11-and-a-half hour today. And another long one tomorrow. So, tonight it’s dinner, dishes and bed. Probably in that order.

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