adventures / cycling / friends / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on Wednesday, right? Right? Right.
22
Jul 20

Wednesday, right? Right? Right.

Just two Zoom calls today, which make something like 45 for the week. One was a big meeting where my task is to be a listener, and to make sure my microphone is muted. On the underside of that meeting is a Slack channel subtext, where my duty is to make the occasional bad joke.

I’m the right person for it.

My second call was after lunch, and for the life of me I thought it was set for next week. So calendar reminders saved me today. I’m still holding strong on days of the week, but I have to make direct efforts to keep the proper dates in mind. But the calendar reminded me that today was the day. This is an important tidbit for you to know!

I got to have a chat with an old friend about pedagogy and Zoom sessions, architecture and video. We are so meta! We might also back ourselves into some sort of project together. Who knows? That’d be fun.

He’s returning from sabbatical this term, so welcome back to him.

We went for a bike ride this evening. We went out easy and then I turned it up once.

This happens a lot. I say, I am going to ride in her pocket and not go out and do something silly. It was very humid and we agreed that our goal was to drink all the water on the ride. And then we got to a place where there was one of the sorts of short punchy hills I can get over pretty well and I created a gap. So we go on like that for a while, until she decides to drop me, which she does promptly.

I began ducking into curves and grinding through rollers and eventually I caught her wheel again. She let me pull for a while before coming around the left and settled into a high cadence. She dropped me for real. I was having a good ride, but she was enjoying a better one. Somehow, near the end, she caught me again. She’d taken a detour for fun and still found it in her catch back on as she doubled back. After a gentle two-mile ascent I got her wheel again.

She passed me, one last time, on the final hard 1,200 meters she was

I think she has a motor in her bicycle.

I’m riding in a hard gear and everything!

(That’s not a bad picture for shooting blind and trying to stay upright. But when you crop a tire it looks like a flat, which is a bad omen I’m always hoping to avoid.)

photo / running / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off on This is thin, I know
21
Jul 20

This is thin, I know

This is how the week is going so far. I kicked three consecutive field goals in the office last night.

And then I shanked one off the left upright and the football skittered off the desk and across the floor, which is a pretty good average for me.

I had a nice short run today. I’ve decided to just do one-milers for a while and see if I can get down to a respectable pace once again. And, from there, I’ll put some distance back in. Who knows if this is the right way to go, but I figure running less might mean I can, ultimately, run more.

For the briefest moment I had a running partner.

Here’s one thing you should know by now, but just in case you’re new here (and, if so, my apologies for this first impression) or you’ve forgotten: she’s faaaaast.

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

cycling / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off on Cats! A ride! A run!
20
Jul 20

Cats! A ride! A run!

Well, it’s another Monday, so let’s check in on the management team. Phoebe has been lounging as comfortably as ever this week:

She’s good at finding the sun. And she’s intent on her naps:

Poseidon was supervising dinner from his overhead perch the other night:

But he was less interested in a weekend video chat:

We went for a nice little bike ride on Saturday. We are good at this route. We manage to time the hardest part of the route with the hottest part of the day. One particular stretch has a deceptive little hill to climb, and the critical part of those three miles there is no shade to enjoy. Also, the county put convection oven elements in the road’s asphalt through there, so you get baked from both directions.

After you finish the climb, though, you get a fun two-mile descent and you eventually find yourself looking at this view:

And then along came this boat. For a 20 mile per hour photo I guess it works out:

Today, today has been a perceptively slow day. And I’m not talking about my run, har-har. It was my first run in seven weeks. Mostly it was a deliberate choice. And then I slightly rolled an ankle trying to avoid a cat. It was a minor thing, but since no one is chasing me, it seemed wise to rest it. This weekend I guess I decided that I’d rested enough. So I set out for a little one-mile run today, because I want to go fast again.

I haven’t been fast since high school or so, and I never will be again, but I can set some baselines and goals. And my new one-mile baseline is slow enough that I can, hopefully, cut out big chunks at a time. So here’s to tomorrow.

Friday / podcast — Comments Off on A little weekend listen
17
Jul 20

A little weekend listen

Ahhh, the weekend. You’re upon us once again and you feel exactly like last weekend, which is also to say you feel exactly like Monday through Friday.

Normally there are the rituals of your week which help delineate your work week from your time off. Mine have now been reduced to … turning off Slack, closing the browser tab containing the work email and walking downstairs. Most importantly, for two wonderful days, I’ll have one less tab open.

So what’s up for your weekend? I’ll go on a bike ride and have Chick-fil-A — curbside takeout, of course. I still don’t think the local store is offering dine-in services, which is more than fine. I’ll spend some time reading and re-reading the county’s mask mandate. There are 12 bullet points worth of exceptions to the mask mandate and it’s a four page document, which is a lot of words to say “Wear a mask.” Also we’ll largely be staying inside since the heat index will be reaching the triple-digits for both Saturday and Sunday. So, yeah, the weekend will be spent trying to find ways to make this weekend unique from the last few, which I’ve basically described, in toto, in this paragraph.

Today, though, well, today was nice enough. I got to meet a professor who had just turned in her tenure packet. It was almost time to celebrate. But first she had to record an interview with me.

We talked about not-for-profits and what’s going on in that sector of the economy when the economy is in the shape it is currently in. It turns out, quite a bit is going on. You should give it a listen. It’s a fun and informative little program. And quite helpful if you’re looking for a new volunteer project.

What are you looking for this weekend?

IU / podcast / Thursday — Comments Off on One over-long note on the interview process
16
Jul 20

One over-long note on the interview process

I received an email a few weeks ago about a scientist doing a massive study on distance learning. I emailed the guy and said, I’d like to talk with you about this when the study gets to an appropriate point. And so we set a date when he was ready to talk about his findings.

That was today. And my first question was, how do you clear IRB, coordinate research from something like half a dozen universities in multiple states and get several co-authors to all pull their weight between when you started this in April and today?

Actually, my first question was, “What’s the difference between distance learning and distance education?” This was a pleasant surprise for him, and you could here it, because he realized this person might be willing to listen to the details. There are a handful of ways to get on the right side of the conversation. One of the easiest is to show you’re going to let the person do their thing. If you demonstrate to a scientist that you’re going to let him roam through nuanced terminology that is still a minor debate among his colleagues, he knows what you’re there for.

It’s sometimes helpful in getting the good answers.

I was talking with The Yankee about this still in-progress study before I talked to the lead author and she says “What’s his question?” This is a basic way to deconstruct a study, but this particular study doesn’t have an overarching question as yet, because this is all brand new. We’re in this forced march to distance instruction — and we’re going to do it again this fall, you wait and see! — and this is a first-time exposure. The question a study like this is going to try to answer is “What are the questions?”

So I tried to explain the study to my wife, from memory, while away from the study, and while we were riding bicycles. I failed at this explanation because she finally said “I still don’t know what his question is.” Which was when I suggested she stop being a grad school professor for a second.

What’s interesting about this interview, to me, though, is that I started thinking up questions with no idea what the answers might be, still-brand-new study and all. Some Thursdays, you work without a net.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →