adventures / Covid-19 / Monday / photo / running / woodworking, sorta — Comments Off on So we let another Monday sneak up on us
09
Aug 21

So we let another Monday sneak up on us

I’m not sure why we let this happen. Again. By now, you’d think, someone would have noticed a pattern. Perhaps they could have gone down to the Office of Naming Things and said something. You probably get brushed off there. They’d send you to the Department of Reorganizing Units of Time. Now, if we know one thing, the humorless people in that office are no help. They’ll let you know straightaway. There’s a sign there that says it takes five business posplexes to get a response back on the paperwork.

The solution then, is obviously to get back to the time machine project. I’m planning on building the next test version in the body of a front-loading clothes dryer.

Unless future me comes back right now to tell me that’s the wrong approach.

…

No future me. So the dryer version it is. I should make some nice progress on it over the next few posplexes.

How was your weekend? Lovely and restful and productive in all of the proper proportions, I’m sure. I had a nice little run on Saturday morning. It was nice until my entire body rebelled. And that’s what you get when you try to run more than a 5K on no fuel. My blood sugar was a bit low, so I walked the last mile. That let me discover some of the largest milkweed plants you’ll ever see.

I wonder if anyone ever just decided to go for it and crack one of those seed pods open, to see what was inside: no tools, no rocks nearby, just hands and derring-do. I’d bet they were sorely disappointed. And their hands were sore.

We picked up the traditional Chick-fil-A lunch, parking right by the front door for the curbside pickup, watching people walking in right by this sign, maskless.

This county went back under a mask mandate last week. I understand, and am sympathetic, to some elements of the current vaccine debate. Because of that, I’m of two minds about the anger. But masks, this is a different category altogether. Masks are effective; they’re no infringement on your rights. You can breathe in them, and we all should know by now that our noses are connected to the respiratory system.

At which point we’re talking about people who, for some reason, want to conflate self-interest and public health. Like there’s a difference.

Went for a nice 25-mile bike this weekend, too. I only just realized that I didn’t take any pictures or videos. Just imagine me falling well behind on a short ride and going much slower than I should.

That was yesterday afternoon. And last night we stained a bit of wood. This is second or third coat, but you can still see The Yankee’s patented dot-dot-stain system.

I’m not sure where that came from, but that’s how she does it. She enjoys staining — now if I can just show her how much fun sanding is! — and has done a lot of the little projects we’ve built around here. I’ll show you what this is later this week.

Because, right now, we must get to the regular Monday check-in on the cats. They’re doing great, as you can tell. Phoebe is enjoying a bit of late evening sun here:

And here she is sleeping. This must be comfortable. She often finds herself wrapped around the arm of the sofa as a part of our evening cuddle.

Upside down is the way to see life, apparently. Poseidon thinks so, anyway.

So rare that the two of them agree on something, it’s worth noting as a universal truth.

And, finally, here’s Poseidon’s latest portrait.

And that’ll do for now. See you tomorrow. It’s only a posplex away!

Did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. And keep up with me on Twitter. Don’t forget my Instagram. There are also some very interesting On Topic with IU podcasts for you, as well.

Friday / IU / photo / Twitter — Comments Off on They grow on trees
06
Aug 21

They grow on trees

The joke around here is that the maple is nature’s first quitter. They turn and fall and they miss out on weeks of glorious summer. That’s coming and, along with it, the awe of autumn. But that’s later. Today? This is just hurtful, oak tree.

Speaking of trees … We have an apple tree in our backyard. Big enough to duck under; not tall enough to climb. We only just discovered this year that it was an apple tree. Five years here and this is the first time it’s bore fruit. Some sort of green apples, but not bitter like a Granny Smith. I set out, then, to identify the apple variety. There are 27 green apples out there, and isn’t that a delightful thing to learn?

We started plotting what we’d do with a whole tree of apples. So many pies! I was mentally picking out the knife and the cutting board, excited about the prospect, you understand. I figured, without knowing the exact apple, we’d just have to estimate when they were ripe, but that’s OK. Nature is a great teacher and there’s a window for this sort of thing.

I have this nice thin knife and a small glass cutting board and it makes a pleasing sound when you work through a fruit or vegetable. Just add cinnamon and enjoy. I have plans. Had plans.

I just noticed the apples are gone. All of ’em.

Squirrels.

(That’s a recreation.)

They didn’t leave a single apple. Here yesterday, see ya’ next year.

Hungry four-legged smugglers.

Let’s wrap the week up with a few things I put on one of the work accounts. Interesting studies performed by interesting people. A lot of grad students, in this case, which makes it even more fun. Watch them all, so you can stay abreast of the latest in social science research.

And within the next week or so we’ll have even more new research to highlight. But that’s for next week. For now, the weekend!

cycling / site / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Faster than Olympians
05
Aug 21

Faster than Olympians

I’d like to tell you about a great adventure on the day, but the truth of it is that there was the office, and then there was enjoying the evening in the backyard, and then enjoying the Olympics into the night.

Two weeks of Olympics following three weeks of Tour de France, mean a lot of televised sports. And the Vuelta a España starts next week. And then you’re into football season. Honestly, being in a safety-first, approach to going to as few places as possible has done wonders for my sports viewing this year.

I’m getting bored with it.

I did update my 404 page today. I noticed, to my great chagrin, that there was a broken link in my missing page. That’s mortifying. Better that I found it myself, rather than someone pointing it out. The error had been there for an embarrassingly long time. I can only assume that means that people don’t run across the 404 page that often.

But isn’t that exciting? I tested links! I moved tables! I saved and refreshed and changed some language!

That is a full on Thursday!

I wanted to share this amazing track event we discovered this evening. It is, in fact, from a few nights ago. Perhaps we missed it, or maybe NBC, burdened by time zone problems covering the Olympics half a world away, couldn’t figure out where to show what’s being called “the greatest race ever” many hours later. I wanted to share it, but NBC has limited where their programming can be shared, and where their pre-rolls can run. It’s a business model, I guess.

Here’s a video you can see on my humble little site. I did the math, we’re going faster than the world record hurdlers. We had better gearing, and fewer hurdles.

It was to be a 90-minute ride. Before we’d gotten through the second neighborhood on the route The Yankee had a problem with her aerobars. She got that resolved, and it allowed her to go faster. So, before we’d gotten through the third neighborhood on the route she dropped me.

Just as I caught back up to her, some 15 miles later, we called it just a bit early, right about the time I shot that video. Sometimes, catching back on feels like the greatest race ever.

adventures / memories / photo / site / Thursday / Wednesday — Comments Off on Blog birthday – the joy of expression and the possibility of “if”
04
Aug 21

Blog birthday – the joy of expression and the possibility of “if”

On this day, 18 years ago, I started writing this blog. I was inspired by Salam Abdulmunem and Raywat Deonandan. Back then, Abdulmunem, writing under the pseudonym Salam Pax, was telling us about the war going on in his backyard, in Baghdad. Today he doesn’t seem to be blogging, but Abdulmunem is working for UNICEF. He’s also turned those early days of his writing into a book or two. Deonandan was and is an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Ottawa. He’s a talented writer.

It all stemmed from those two specifically, but also many of the other blogs I was reading, and the question of “What would it be like, if?” A few of those blogs, happily, are still active. But just a few. I stay up-to-date. Most moved on with their lives, of course. Some made an announcement, told of a better writing assignment or what have you. Others just … stopped. And I always wonder about those. And about this place. What happens, if?

Mostly, though, as it pertains to this blog, I wonder what I will write about each day. I wonder how I could do more here. How I can simultaneously use more regular features, but avoid them because they are repetitive. I wonder, how I could make it more interesting, find more intriguing things to talk about, fascinating places to visit and so on. I often wonder where I can find more time in the day in which to do it. There’s a lot that goes into the service of an active personal blog.* (We aren’t mentioning here things I’ve written for pleasure or professionally in other places and formats.)

On that first day, 18 years ago, I quoted a verse from Proverbs, one about humility. Nothing is more humbling than writing, I figured. Sometimes that is correct; often that’s wrong. But I did not have all of this wisdom then, see, that I have today.

I wrote two notes about Little Rock, one of them was a story I would have surely covered if I still worked there. (I was a year removed.) The other was about the terrific numbers my old station had in their latest ratings book. (They were the top station back then. They’re second today, according to the spring numbers.) I also had an observation about my family and the great Nanci Griffith, who I happened to be listening to that night. I listened to a lot of her music. Still do.

And that was 18 years ago, hosted on Blogspot, powered by Blogger. There were a few thousand posts there. I moved everything to this site in 2004 — my URL celebrates 17 years Friday. The blogging shifted to WordPress in April of 2010. Some 3,700-plus posts and counting since then. The site has welcomed 4.19 million users and the front page of the blog has had just over one million. When you count the many different pages it’s a bit more than that, but I don’t have a streamlined way to see that data.

And so we’ll start another year, right here. Let’s see what happens, if.

*I didn’t intend for this week to be grounded in random anniversaries, but themes have a way of writing themselves sometimes. Tomorrow, back to the normal stuff, I promise.

history / IU / journalism / memories / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Ernie Pyle Day
03
Aug 21

Ernie Pyle Day

Five years ago, I took this photograph. This is Ernie Pyle’s statue, just outside of our building on the IU campus.

These days, the celebrated reporter’s desk is one floor above my office at The Media School. He’s the patron saint of journalism around here. Today is now recognized Ernie Pyle Day, and this is the fourth one. (Today is his birthday.)

Today, to the literal minute, I took this photograph of the Ernie Pyle statue. Not much has changed. In some respects, a lot of things have changed.

But things are changing still. That’s the way of it.

Eight years ago this very week we visited The Newseum, it was still in D.C., and we saw Pyle’s old Corona typewriter. He carried it into Europe and the Pacific islands and typed his World War II stories right there.

Now this typewriter, Pyle’s Underwood, is on display here in Franklin Hall. That and more of his effects, his field jacket, his entrenching tool, a pipe and other items, are on display just around the corner.

Happy Ernie Pyle day.

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