books / Friday / photo — Comments Off on Just enough to get you into a weekend mood
22
Nov 19

Just enough to get you into a weekend mood

We’re hitting the books once again. Perusing the periodicals. Reading the rag. Making our way through the magazines. Digging the Digest …

This being my grandfather’s book. I have a stash of them. It’s not much, but it’s one window into his world that I don’t otherwise see a lot. I have a lot of his old books, and we’re slowly making our way through them here. Mostly just to make fun of the things we see inside. So click the cover above to see the latest installments. If you’re not at all familiar with what we’ve added from the April 1969 issue of the Reader’s Digest, you can see the selected pieces right here.

Next week we’ll wrap up the last of this book, and then we’ll move into something that isn’t a Reader’s Digest. Oh, the decisions I’ll have to make. These aren’t difficult decisions, of course. I’ll get to each of them in time. But, still, there’s an entire plastic tub of magazines to consider. And then a few boxes and bookshelves more after that. Which will be next.

It’s something to wrestle with. Speaking of which …

We think they’re brother and sister. Sometimes they act like it. Most of the time they do not, but now that they are recently curling up with one another it’s a cute moment. It probably has to do with colder nights. But whatever it is, it is cute.

And then Phoebe put Poseidon in a dream-induced headlock:

She’s really cinched it on, as you can see, and he’s starting to fade:

The referee is going to call this at any moment:

Not really. They were both calmly dozing. And the refs, us, kind of want her to stick up for herself anyway. So even if this was cute and a sleep thing and no one minded, The Yankee and I took this as a positive sign. She’s giving him the what for!

And then someone moved and there was a repositioning:

He somehow reversed the hold.

That’s the action around here on a Friday night. I hope yours is suitably outrageous, as well.

IU / photo / Thursday — Comments Off on Sports Nite
21
Nov 19

Sports Nite

I pulled this picture off Instagram, which is why it is a little fuzzy, and also why I converted it to black and white. At the end of tonight’s television production, much of the crew got together. It was the last sports show of the semester. The young woman that directs the highlight show is graduating. She’s been a part of IUSTV for almost four years, and a member of the station’s management for three years. They created a nice little goodbye montage for her. The sports director was anchoring tonight. They’re friends. She, in fact, brought him into the program. To keep the video a surprise he called the package from the desk, which was a cool little moment.

There’s also a few people in that photograph who have been a part of the station for three years or more. There are hot shot freshmen. There are people who, this very evening, made their first on camera appearance. The sports director, who won a statewide award last year, is in there. A lot of these students, working on the same show last year, can claim second-place in the College Media Association’s Pinnacle Awards, which is aptly named. Second in the nation.

When I talked to the group in their post-production meeting tonight — after the director’s cut of the touching goodbye montage was shown — I got to say how different things were when the outgoing director first started here. How much stronger and how much smoother an operation it is. The sports crew have sent three people to ESPN and a handful to local stations across the country in the last four years. But now we’re starting to get good at this stuff.

And I thanked them for doing this. We have a joke that the Thanksgiving week holiday really starts on the Tuesday the week before Thanksgiving. Students have often mentally checked out. And then those cliched “My parents bought my airline ticket, but my flight is on Wednesday … ” jokes. And most of our students don’t have classes on Fridays, anyway. But here they are. Late Thursday night. Most people have skipped town, but the student media are still doing the things they love, with people they care about. It says a lot about what they want to do, and it’s a special thing.

The guy who designed the studio is in that picture, off on the far left. He works with us a lot. We’re both just happy to help this group learn how to do this.

Wednesday / woodworking, sorta — Comments Off on This was right, until it was wrong
20
Nov 19

This was right, until it was wrong

I was going to start with this …

… but that’s not exactly accurate. I did get to play with power tools today. I mentioned on Monday that I was close to wrapping up this one project with a whole series of jokes about how I’m not good at working with wood. Measure twice, cut once, sand away your shortcomings. That sort of thing.

Only the belt sander probably caused as many problems as it created.

Fortunately, I realized, a quick bit of sawing would solve all of my troubles — and boy don’t we always say that. I did that.

So there was fun to be seen.

Tonight, you see, I had the choice of breaking out the miter saw or running a quick shopping errand. It was my job to pick up two frames for some fancy certificates my television gang has received. Only there wasn’t enough time tonight.

We had just the one car between us today, because The Yankee’s car is in the shop. It isn’t a terrible inconvenience. We work at the same place, of course, and our schedules matched up nicely today. It’s really an issue of what you’re accustomed to. You’re used to being independent, but now you must depend on someone in the simple matter of getting from A to B. And, in this case, you must depend on me. And you must depend on people leaving my office at quitting time, so that we may all, you know, quit for the day.

We left late, which changed up the evening. If I stopped off at C, that would throw off dinner plans, and that would keep me from making sawdust, which I wanted to do. And I did! Now I just have to glue it all up, later this week, and then stain and finish the thing this weekend.

So I’ll try to take care of that shopping errand in the morning. Of course, first-thing shopping is a wholly different experience than late-in-the-day shopping.

There will be more fun tomorrow, then.

Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off on You’ve gotta get up early in the morning to think this up
19
Nov 19

You’ve gotta get up early in the morning to think this up

The booking photo looks about like you’d imagine, after you hear about this story. I suppose they rarely surprise. The story is as old as winter, but with a twist.

It seems a gentleman here in town went out to warm up his car yesterday morning. He went back inside his apartment, only to see his car being stolen. So there’s someone out in the parking lot, at 5:30, shivering, waiting for some knucklehead to come crank their car, leave it running, unattended and unlocked.

That happened. The knucklehead, having seen the car being stolen, ran outside, got into his other car and chased off after it. Presumably without warming it up.

At this point, I’d like to point out that both of the cars in this story are reportedly the knucklehead’s girlfriend’s cars.

But why call a guy who’s just having a terrible morning a knucklehead?

Dear reader. You’re asking the right question at the wrong time. Because this knucklehead chased down the stolen car at a nearby gas station. And then he made the outstanding life choice to start shooting into it.

He reportedly fired 13 rounds at his girlfriend’s car. Which, to me, means you had 12 opportunities after catching up to it to ask yourself what the desired outcome would be. At best, at best, a person — chagrined at having stolen a car, disappointed at being chased down, scared to death for having been shot at — gets out of the car and peacefully gives up and the knucklehead sits on him until the police arrive. But, really, is that going to be what really happens? Next, you just fire into your girlfriend’s car, causing a lot of damage you have to get repaired. Then the options get grim. You wing the car thief, who is now bleeding all over the leather upholstery and fine Chrysler carpet. Or, you know, you just kill the thief, and that’s going to take up the bulk of your day, seeing as how you have no grounds to shoot this person.

Anyway, after the gunfire started at this gas station the one bad guy drives away in the still-stolen car. And the knucklehead continues to give chase. Eventually, he finds the car, abandoned. (And not too far from our house.) The car thief has yet to be found. There was no blood in the car. The knucklehead has been charged with criminal recklessness with a firearm, pointing a firearm and carrying a handgun without a license because he decided firing 13 rounds at someone stealing his girlfriend’s car was the right play.

A safe and civil city, indeed.

hobby / Monday / photo / woodworking, sorta — Comments Off on Remember the old saw …
18
Nov 19

Remember the old saw …

Measure once, cut twice? I’ve been measuring and measuring.

First, I created a test version of this project I’m working on. And we decided how to change the project. It is going to be smaller. Just six inches high, and not seven and change. And so the work model was disassembled. Part of it was plywood, and that was stacked away neatly for some future project that might require quality plywood.

The original side pieces will be re-used for the finished project. So I ripped them down to size this weekend:

And I took some extra pieces of pine and cross cut those to (more or less) the width of the finished project. It will require three pieces:

One of them is warped. It might have a warp in a whorl, I don’t know. But I think I figured out a way around that. Measure twice (measure a few dozen times) and cut once.

Then! Use the belt sander to sort it out:

I’ve learned several things, working with wood the last two years. One of those things is that I prefer the product to the process. So it’s a nice side hobby, but this is never going to be a primary interest. (Begging many questions, I know.) I’ve learned which parts of the process that I like less than others. Usually it has to do with some moment that marks no going back. But, I remind myself, measure twice and so on. And I’ve learned to recognize when it is time to stop for the day. Before you get frustrated. Before you rush. Before you hastily get past some no-going-back moment that belies the notion that it’s only wood. Before the process wears you out.

This was much of my weekend.

At least until I overdid it with the belt sander, so the new phrase is this: Measure twice, cut once, use the belt sander to sort it out, and then cut it again.

So, really, get lumber larger than the size of your finished project. For refinements.

And this evening I glued up and assembled some of the pieces. Later this week I’ll make the final cuts, and glue the final pieces. And then, we’re going to finish the project, so it is a finished project. Probably next week I’ll show you what this is.

Turns out I’m a slow worker on matters that aren’t the primary interest.

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