Monday / photo — Comments Off on Another week it is, then
22
Feb 21

Another week it is, then

This was one of the larger snow mounds at the big box store last weekend. It was before the big snow. Let’s chart it’s progress.

This is that same mound of snow on Saturday.

It was joined by one that was even larger.

We’ll see how long they last. It is warming up a bit this week, but that’s a lot of snow. A colleague, online, is predicting they’ll be with us until mid-March. I hope not, but he may be correct.

If you go out there with a blow dryer to speed up the process that’s cheating. But we’ll allow it.

Yesterday we went to the grocery store. We needed shallots and batteries and figured, it’s a pleasant-ish enough day. Let’s make a walk of it. So we walked up to the grocery store. Two miles, one way. The store did not have shallots. (Dinner was delicious anyway, and I most assuredly drove the shallots joke into the ground.)

On the new pedestrian bridge, on the walk back:

My feet only got a little wet tromping through the snow. Some sidewalks haven’t been cleaned since the last snow, last Tuesday. And that, I suppose, why the city is trying to annex more land, so it can tax it and not clean it.

The meadows look nice though!

The cats are doing fine. They’ve lately noticed that we’re getting a little more sunlight once again. Everyone is grateful for that.

Phoebe is pondering warmer temperatures.

I think she thinks she needs a bath.

She can take care of that herself. I fear the claws. I have some deep scratches from her from weeks ago that haven’t healed yet.

Poseidon knows what’s up. I don’t know what’s up, but he does.

And he’s still trying to convince you he’s cute and adorable and innocent.

Don’t believe it for a second.

Friday / IU / television / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Robots everywhere
19
Feb 21

Robots everywhere

Last night we saw sports shows produced, and today we can watch them online. And here they are now. This is the highlight show, all the lights that worth holding up high, and the stories to go with them.

And this is the famous talk show. They’ve got a new host this year. This is his first episode, and he’s hit the ground running.

Also last night, in another studio, one of the creative groups blocked out shots for their upcoming season. This morning there was a morning show to shoot, and so another group of people shot that. Between all of that and the Tuesday productions … it’s been a busy first week in the studio for all of them, is what I’m saying.

Our cameras are controlled from another room. We use robots to produce shows, and that’s never not neat.

Did I mention it is cold? It was seven degrees when I left the house this morning. Felt like two below. I don’t want to say I’m used to it, because I am a human being with self-awareness and a penchant for the finer things in life like, you know, desirable weather. And I can’t say I’m surprised because I am, in fact, numb to this whole thing after the last few weeks of invasive Canadian weather. But, somehow, it didn’t phase me this morning.

I looked out the window and looked at the weather and said, Well, at least the sun is out. If it has to be cold it should at least be bright. That sounds like a case of Stockholm syndrome, but it is really an acknowledgement of our dimly lit circumstance. Days and weeks of overcast skies are demoralizing, but at least, in a few weeks, maybe, that’ll be behind us … until next Thanksgiving or so.

We’ll try not to fixate on that.

Colder on parts of Mars today. And the photos that are coming back to us from Perseverance are impressive.

NASA had a little feature for that rover where you could put your name on board. They were coded on a microchip or the head of a pin or just added to a database somewhere. But I took the opportunity to put my grandfather’s name on the list with thousands of others. And then I put a lot of other people’s names on it, too. When that rover landed yesterday I was thinking of my grandfather. I bet he would be amused by the progress we’ve made toward Mars in the last few years. I have a lot of his books, and there’s a lot of real science interest there. High-definition cameras on another planet, they’re the 16th cousin 45 times removed from what we use in our television studio. Only we’re cabled and they are operating via a signal broadcast 127 million miles away.

My mother, his daughter, asked me once if the moon landing is impressive to me. We’ve always been there to my way of thinking, you see, where she was one of the many millions who watched and held their breath when Neil and Buzz landed.

It is impressive, but I love that question. It’s a great feat, but there’s no mystery about whether we can pull it off — only when we’ll do it again.

But Mars, well, we have other rovers there, sure, but that’s another planet. And there’s a video camera there now. And a helicopter. And we’re just getting started. We’re making real progress on Mars. Another planet. And we might put people there in short order. On another planet.

Until then, the robots are impressing us nicely.

I wonder if they get the weekends off.

cycling / photo / television / Thursday / Twitter — Comments Off on Someone’s alarm went off at 5:30 — and then I was awake
18
Feb 21

Someone’s alarm went off at 5:30 — and then I was awake

I think this morning marked the fourth time we’ve shoveled the driveway in the last week or so. It’s a small driveway, thankfully, and this was a light snow. Probably it didn’t even need to be done, but it’s become rote. Get up, examine the pavement, and then eat something, maybe. While our little stretch of paved paradise took an hour and change on Tuesday after the biggest snow, it went quickly today.

Mostly I wanted to do a better job of digging out the nearby fire hydrant. One of my former students did a story on this at his station in Ohio this week and I was somewhat guilted into it. So slush slush and heave ho and, oh, look, the city guy that plows the walking path behind us but not the street in front of us came through and poured his best effort into the road.

Because what you want … nah, what I want … is for you to drive down an untreated road and then hit a snow bank you can’t see right in front of my yard and the electrical boxes and the gas line.

I don’t know anything about plowing roads, and I wonder who around here actually does.

So I got that off the road, just being neighborly and all. And then, since I had fully warmed up my core, I decided to go on a little bike ride.

This is the volcano route on Zwift’s fictional world. Some of the environments they offer are trying to be realistic. Some have a bit of a futuristic feel and this one is pure fantasy. My avatar is riding through a volcano there. You go in the volcano twice on the way up and twice again after you ride to the top of the active volcano.

I’m breathing a bit on the bike in the house, which does not smell of sulfur, could you imagine that in real life?

Anyway, I left my bike in one of the harder gears and just dragged myself all the way to the top of this little climb. It’s a good weekday sort of thing. It doesn’t take even a slow person like me forever, and you can still move around a bit when you’re done. I had an hour this morning, and this is what I did.

Zwift charts the King of the Mountain, which is the fastest person up the route. And the current leader is a name I recognize. Dylan Teuns is much faster than I am. He’s younger, stronger, a climber, more fit and also, and this part is incredibly important, an insanely talented professional cyclist. But today I got to the top of the climb in just under twice the amount of time it took him to do it. So I’m putting him on notice.

I can tell by the number of replies he’s not sent that I’m absolutely in his head.

Anyway, that was my second time up the volcano route, and I shaved a little over a minute off my previous time. So I guess there’s something to that snow shovel warm up.

This evening it was back to the studio. We shot the talk show first, new semester, new soccer season, new host.

And Jevan was on the desk to kick off the semester. Were there gifs? There were gifs.

Thursday nights run into Friday quickly into Fridays. Dinner, dishes, and, now, bedtime. We’ll be back in the studio again tomorrow morning. I’m tired already. Can’t imagine why.

IU / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on First shows of the semester
17
Feb 21

First shows of the semester

I teased yesterday’s television productions. Now they’re online. The guest I showed you appeared in this show, where she talks about a new and very special project on campus:

And the first news show of the semester is here:

It’s a bit later than normal because they started the spring term with a virtual-only schedule for the first three weeks. So, now, getting shows back underway, we’re already five weeks into the term. Tempus fuggedaboutit.

Tomorrow, sports, and some other dry runs, and a Friday show and then a Monday program and on and on and … we’re suddenly up to full speed. It’s a bit like not marveling at how a train is traveling until it’s already topped out.

Anyway, light day today, a longer one tomorrow. And then the slow push to the weekend. We are promised two days above freezing for the first time in a solid two weeks.

Believe it when you can see the mercury, right?

But, first, there will be more snow to shovel tomorrow!

Bloomington / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on That second wave of snow was something else
16
Feb 21

That second wave of snow was something else

Today was a work-from-home day for our campus, so I worked from home for most of the day. We, like most of you, had weather. This is how much we received:

We have a short driveway, and it took an hour to dig it out. Biggest snow we’ve had in our time here. It’d be a great parenthetical close to winter, too, but more will be coming before we’re done. We’re never done, it seems.

Our road does not get plowed.

But a city truck came down the road, with his plow disengaged, to turn onto the walking path between houses. The road is in the county, but it seems as though the city maintains the paths, even the one behind our property, in the county. And this is how he went about getting back there.

The path, when he was done, was generally in much better shape than some of the roads. They really understand winter around here.

Except for this part of the path, where walkers can encounter a hurdle at a T-intersection. It was fun to watch people step over this on a slick ground.

The entire day was not a work-from-home experience. I went in late in the evening for a television production. The roads were, once again, a mixed bag of quality. Some were downright dry. Others looked like a sheet of tundra dotted with buildings. The sidewalks were a hilarious joke. It seemed about every other one had received some half-hearted attention. Winter, they really get it.

In the studio this evening was this young woman, who is the first editor of a new section of the campus paper.

It has been a great read this year. She, and all of her contributors have done a great job with it. And I’ll let her tell you about it when that interview goes online tomorrow.

So make sure you check back for that. And stay warm and dry until then.

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