cycling / Friday / memories / video — Comments Off on Beware hyphenated beverages, and television tropes
12
Jun 20

Beware hyphenated beverages, and television tropes

After the meetings were done and the work completed, it was time for a bike ride. We took the usual Friday route, and today that meant about 42 miles. I rode it very fast, which means decidedly average.

After the second stop sign I caught a break in traffic and decided to see how long I could stay out front. So I looked over my shoulder for the next 36 miles. But my shoulder and my wheel stayed clean.

I knew if “I make it to there, I can stay out front until … ” and then I did, which meant I had to keep reshaping those observations. “OK, if I can make it to the climb … ” and then I did, so I did that four or five times and I found myself shooting for the place where she caught me last week. At which point she was well back and I thought I might stay out front the entire way, if traffic would cooperate. So then I had to ride harder to be sure. And that’s how I stayed out front the entire way, which never happens. Turns out my legs felt tired, but it was a pretty good ride. And The Yankee didn’t have her best ride. That’s what it takes to stay ahead of her. (She’s very fast.)

Sometimes, you can say it all in 280 characters.

But why stop with one 280-character style tweet when you own a domain where you can throw another 1,450 characters and 322 more words on it?

They made a movie based on the television show a few years ago. I understand it was very bad. I listened to some people complaining about that, another part of their childhood ruined, basically, before saying “It isn’t like the show was high art … ” and everyone had to agree.

I call it the Yoo-hoo phenomenon. You remember that drink. It was so good.

It isn’t good at all.

This used to be the Chocolate Soldier phenomenon, but that drink disappeared before the turn of the century — and not a single soul outside the creation of the product noticed — but Yoo-hoo, somehow, survives.

Point is, things that you thought were great when you were a kid are probably not good at all. And after you get over watching GTOs jump over every ravine that doesn’t exist in south Georgia, and realizing that it always seems to be infrastructure week in Hazzard County, there’s not a lot to the show.

I’d like to see the Amazon metrics, is what I’m saying. How many people are streaming that show, at this point? It is, I would imagine, a vanishingly small number. Also, it’s disappeared before, only to quietly return, so what do I know? What does this Time author of 2015 who decided to re-watch the pilot episode know? (Update: A week later, it’s still there, but a bit harder to find. And you can still by t-shirts or fake rustic tin sizes featuring the car. There are also 66 purchase options for Yoo-hoo.)

In more ways than one, The Dukes of Hazzard are a chocolate-flavored drink. It’s not milk; it’s barely a chocolate. People that endured the Dukes because the kids loved it could have said the same thing, then. And who among all of us are streaming shows like that now?

Go try that Yoo-hoo. Next time you’re out, pick one up, buy it, shake it, slam it. You’ll see.

podcast / Thursday / Twitter — Comments Off on Sometimes Thursday fly
11
Jun 20

Sometimes Thursday fly

The light week continues. I’m not sure where the days are going just now. Probably Zoom meetings and Slack messages. I spent some time this evening working on a project in the garage, too. And, somehow, that constitutes a much of the day. And also a podcast. Third one of the week! I’m saving one for next week, but I do have one for you today.

Danielle Kilgo researches protest movements and she walked me expertly through this conversation. At one point, I think, I said “Statement of fact. Give me an answer?” She overcame my deficiencies and loaned her expertise to the cause and it turned into a terrific show. Just because of her, it had nothing to do with me. Plus, I think, I hope, it represents the beginning of a pivot in the program. We’ll see about that this summer, but for now let’s see about this:

On the subject of shows, I have always wanted to try this, too:

The point would be all of the new ways that a scientist in one field is using a satellite or a radar or some other piece of tech being applied in a field that’s, well, far afield. How did you come to try that? What does this simplify or amplify for you? What kind of doors does this idea up for more work in your specialty?

I got to do one episode of this on an old show, before things got shut down. LIDAR was making the rainforests spill all of its secrets about how big the ancient cities were. I found someone in the same field to talk about how taking a few modern tools were changing the efforts of archeology and nothing less than our understanding of the sheer size of a society. It would be a boring show for everyone that’s not taking part in it, probably, but at some point the first audience is the most important one.

There’s something important to be said about the power of humanity and the healing of the spirit.

Between the leeches and the take-two-of-these-and-call-me-in-the-morning and the tonsillectomies and the Ritalin and the animal-assisted therapy we’re going to find out one day that hope is another important prescription. Maybe this disease creates some circumstances, the highly contagious nature of the thing and negative air pressure rooms, that deprives people of an elemental treatment. It could be that soothing sounds and rhythmic lights and butterflies are part of the deal, too. It could be that we learn one day that hanging upside down or a trivial root boiled at a precise temperature will ease our aches and pains. Maybe we find concentrated sound waves clean up your organs. Maybe concentrated beet juice really does do something. People do something, for each other, too.

Maybe, and bear with me here, masks and social distancing work. Let’s keep trying that.

hobby / photo / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Got 20 minutes? There are two great videos below
10
Jun 20

Got 20 minutes? There are two great videos below

I found some fossils down at the lake yesterday. We have to spread these things out for content just now, plus I’ve been playing around with a new light box setup at home. So yesterday’s crinoid samples would have to wait. They’ve been sitting around for a few hundred million years, so what’s a few more hours, really?

Anyway, I am trying to remember how to take pictures of small things.

They look like shriveled Cheerios, don’t they? Really crunchy cereal bites with ridges. Don’t eat these, they aren’t that tasty, and probably difficult to digest at this stage.

It’s amazing, really. I’m taking these pictures and I’ll put these back out by the lake or a creek or something and maybe one day someone else will see them.

Or maybe they’ll just wait for another few hundred million years until the insect citizens of Perpaplexiconia dig through a few more feet of soil and who knows what they’ll think of tiny fossils. Maybe they’ll eat stones for their digestive properties.

Stuff from Twitter, to pad this out.

This is sort of self-explanatory. But I always wonder how people select the takeover person, and what that negotiation is like. Do you have to leave your license and car keys behind or something? Now, a full on swap for a day or so would be enlightening. I think it might be better on Instagram than Twitter, actually.

George Taliaferro is one of those people that, the more you read about him, the more you want to know about him.

He led the Hoosiers to their only undefeated season, helped end segregation in Bloomington by a few different methods:

He became the first African-American drafted by the NFL, and spent a lifetime, I mean the rest of his life, lifting up others. I regret not having had the chance to meet him before he passed away. But there are plenty of great stories about him, I mean plenty, and football is merely the way you learn about an otherwise great man.

Midway through this piece Taliaferro talks about he and the university president managed to desegregate the businesses of Bloomington. It’s a little choppy, but it goes like this: There was a photo in a popular restaurant right across the street from campus that had a picture of a championship IU team on the wall. Taliaferro said to Herman Wells, my picture is on the wall, but I can’t eat there. And Wells said, we’ll just see about that. It’s a big little story about two amazing men.

They don’t make many like that anymore, and they never did make enough of them to begin with.

I have an idea about this, don’t:

Can you imagine? One day you’re going through life’s drudgeries, the next day you’re in a pandemic, and then suddenly you’ve lost your father and your step-mother and now you’re the caregiver to five children and a stroke victim.

Where a mask, wash your hands, give the people around you plenty of distance.

journalism / photo / podcast / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off on Dip your toes in, the water’s fine
09
Jun 20

Dip your toes in, the water’s fine

And, now, a scene from “the beach,” which is how I mistakenly thought of the lake’s shore line when we were out there for a few minutes today. That says something about how long since I’ve seen a beach.

It was Christmas, last time I saw a beach, and that was just looking into a sound, so it might not even count. If you don’t count that you have to go back to last July. I’m not the biggest beach person in the world, but that still seems like too long.

So we were at the lake for a few minutes. It rained. I sat under an umbrella talked on the phone while The Yankee did some considerable distance of freestyle swim. And that was lunch. Down to the lake, in for a quick dip and then produce a show.

Talked to an economist today. Bottom line is … we know a lot of things, but that really just illustrates what we don’t know. We’re about to start stage four of back-up-and-at-’em here, which will be normal-ish but for some restrictions that won’t get honored a lot, I’m sure.

The good news is that the jobless claims are coming down from the spring. The bad news is they are still very high. The other bad news is that state tax revenues are taking a hit. This was not a surprise, but still, it is underway and impactful. The good news is that people are going back to work and so there is progress to be made. But don’t take my word for it. I have a minor in economics. This is an actual economist:

I have a love-hate relationship with security-footage-as-news stories. It doesn’t devalue a story, but too often it elevates a story beyond its natural worth because of suddenly compelling available video. Compelling, easily available video. (That part is important.) Or, even worse, it elevates a story because there’s video and no one else has anything better that day.

It’s a tricky thing, when visual drive messages. I see and have worked with and teach this stuff, so I consider all sides of the argument. I think we all should consider all sides of its use before using it, and that’d be a great starting point, I’d say.

And then there’s stuff like this …

Funny how video has helped bring to light rampant injustice in society. Funny how necessary that video is for this sort of circumstance. Sometimes the visuals have to drive the message.

More on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and more On Topic with IU podcasts as well.

Monday / photo — Comments Off on Go faster on Mondays
08
Jun 20

Go faster on Mondays

Phoebe is guarding my office door for me. She’s my new hire in the Keep Poseidon Out, 2020 campaign.

Poseidon, meanwhile, is trying to gain entrance by being sneaky.

It’s a real cat and homo sapiens sort of game.

We had a bike ride this evening, one of our regular routes, as it was a light and easy sort of day. Leave the neighborhood, breeze through another one, take three stop signs and then some long open stretches featuring a few turns and one turnaround and then one respectable hill. After that you hang a right and work through a stop sign and then over two hills, a few more turns and then back to the house. And, at the end of it, it came down to 48 seconds. If I’d worked a bit harder and found a way to drop 48 seconds off the total time my average speed would have gone up a tick.

You can’t do anything about that after you’re back inside and looking at the data. It’s hardly worth kicking yourself over, but after you’ve caught your breath and had some electrolytes and you’re not sitting in the saddle you find yourself thinking “Forty-eight seconds. I could surely have mustered that from somewhere.”

Getting to that next, higher number would mean nothing. I was two-tenths off of it today. Big deal! Two-tenths faster and I’m still traveling at average speed, over largely favorable terrain that I ride constantly. But it would have felt satisfying.

Here’s the thing of this ride. Somewhere along the way I lost The Yankee’s wheel. It was one of those days when she was stronger than me and I love those days because I have to work like a maniac to try to get back on and sometimes I do. Sometimes I have to use all the little tricks I know to do it, diving through corners and doing ridiculous super-tucks and going uphill in all the wrong gears and so on. But, sometimes, I can get back on terms with her pace. I had to do that in this ride. I’m not exactly sure how I came uncoupled, but you look down and you look up and it’s happened and that’s the way some rides go.

You smile at that because if, like today, like there’s an effort in you then you have to try. I had that today so I tried that today and so I watched her for several miles moving at her own fine pace a quarter-mile, a half-mile up the road, while I was yo-yoing and sucking air and then surging and ebbing until, finally, I realized that the next little bit of topography favored my ride. And I did catch her, right at the end. I was riding hard, but I think I could have ridden just a little bit more.

Forty-eight seconds. Really, that’s time I should have ticked off at the front of the ride, when you’re still behaving casually. But you don’t think of that over electrolytes, either, just that you could.

You could. That’s something special about a bicycle. There’s always the feeling of you could.

Trick is moving that from inside the house to on the road. And doing it from the start.

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