Four Things

My Fall Schedule

I put my schedule into Google Calendar last week.  It is the time of year to be mapping syllabi against the current calendar and getting weekly details into our family calendar so that me and Mrs. TANBI can head off as many SNAFUs as possible.  For years now all of my classes have been in the afternoon.  That's left over from when I built my schedule in anticipation of Gib5on being born.  The new COVID schedule doesn't change that, although the end of my class day is later than it has been historically.  I have my usual Fall semester: Technical Direction 1, Technical Direction 3, and PTM Professional Practice.  When I set it up, I elected for PPP to be full remote and for TD1 and TD3 to be hybrid.  In the last couple of days I have been second guessing that decision.  Part of me thinks TD1 should be full remote as well, and maybe TD3 should meet on my porch - I'll have to look at the enrollment, the class might actually be too big for that this year.  The semester is only 12 weeks this Fall.  The university decided that we would not come back for the two weeks after Thanksgiving and the school decided that all things being equal that time might be better put to use by expanding (the now fully remote) Playground to two weeks.  I guess my next step is to look at the 15 week syllabi and cut them to 12.  PPP and TD1 should accommodate that easily.  TD3 will be more of a challenge mostly because it will shorten all the project timelines.

Biking Angst

If you have been following you know I've been trying to get some physical activity by doing some riding.  I don't know why I would think this would be different, but the biking has found me some new things to be angsty about.  Mostly here I blame Facebook.  To try to stay informed I joined a Facebook group for owners of the brand of eBike I bought.  I thought it would be a good way to find out about the bike since I bought it on kind of a lark without knowing much about it.  The COVID crisis has apparently caused eBike sales to spike.  Probably one third of the posts in the group are people doing unboxing videos when they receive their bike.  Another third of the posts are people complaining about how long they have been waiting for their bike - keep in mind every one of these orders was a back order.  I guess it is possible that RAD is letting the order deliveries slip, but people had to know what they were getting into.  The remaining third of the posts are probably split evenly between people having a great time with their bike and people that have had some kind of unfixable mechanical problem.  It's that last bit that is my problem.  In high school I was a pretty competent bike mechanic, but the eBike is an order of magnitude more complicated with electronics and sensors and bike components way more complicated than I remember.  This has caused me a fair bit of pessimistic thinking around breaking down on the road or having something on the bike fail.  There's probably no reason for this, and knock wood everything is fine, but I am now and pretty much always have been angsty.

Back to Public School

PPS has decided to take a 9 week time out.  They were going to be back in person for those that had elected that option as soon as three weeks from now.  Then the teachers started to push a little and the board voted on going full remote for everyone for a little while so they can better be ready when they do come back.  The schools are basically on a trimester and everyone is now staying home through the first grading period.  That has people coming back to the building right around Thanksgiving.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them come to the same conclusion CMU did and decide to stay home from Thanksgiving to New Years, at which point coming in for two or three weeks in November will seem less reasonable.  The second grading period goes basically from Thanksgiving to Valentines Day.  So part of me wonders if really we're looking at a return to in person school well into the Spring.  That is quite a bit of extrapolation though.  I'm probably wrong.  I am glad they have decided to take the time out.  There was a news report on last night where they were showing some of the preparations that local schools are making and they just seem to be way, way too little.  In one part they were saying one district was limiting bus capacity to 12 and another district was holding to 60%.  The internet says 48 adults fit on a school bus.  60% of 48 is 28.8 so say 28.  The reporter didn't even question how 12 and 28 could both be safe.  I think that's pretty indicative of the whole issue.  Every district is on their own.  Today on the news I saw coverage of Marching Band practice at an area high school.  The director was on saying "We're doing everything we can to keep the kids safe."  No you're not.  They don't have to be there.

The Latest Binge

I just finished watching The Girlfriend Experience on Starz.  We paid for Starz so we could watch the latest season of Outlander and since we finished that I have been looking for things to justify the subscription.  (Side note: did you know there's a straight line from DS9 to BSG to Outlander?)  So I was combing through the available series and fell on The Girlfriend Experience.  I should start off with that it is a little more porny than I was probably looking for.  It makes sense based on the content, but some of what they chose to depict was a little surprising.  Season three even starts to carry a new opening placard.  The show is shot really beautifully.  I could not help but notice that the locations they chose and the way they decided to shoot them were really impressive.  Another quirky element is that the three seasons are three different stories.  In and of itself that isn't too odd, but the first story and the third story don't really come to a conclusion.  They just sort of end with all kinds of unresolved plot lines.  I guess there's something to be said for less conventional story telling and maybe I don't need to have everything tied up in a bow but for me, at least, it was disappointing.  Also, the first season was really about the ins and outs of the business.  Season two made those details much more of a sideline, and season three shifted the narrative to political intrigue centering around one of the customers.  In some ways it really comes off as three different shows.

Four Things

Masks

I am getting incrementally less patient and more angry with people not wearing masks.  Not wearing includes wearing the mask around the neck, or hanging it off one ear, or carrying it around until needed.  We're going to have masks for quite a while.  I can't imagine mask orders are going to lift inside of six months.  I wouldn't be surprised if masks are still with us in 18 months or more.  In that scenario it seems like we're really past the moment for half measures.  The culture ought to be if you leave your residence you should be wearing a mask.  When you walk out the door put it on and leave it on.  I've seen people questioning/poking fun at people wearing masks in their car or when they out alone on their bike.  That is counter-productive.  We need to get comfortable wearing our masks.  People need to find a mask they like and get used to having it on all the time.  I went down into Oakland today to pick up lunch.  Inside the restaurant everyone had a mask on, but out on the street the majority of people were not.  We're into a world where that isn't OK any more.  Until the numbers improve significantly masks need to be second nature.  I really don't understand why this message is finding it so difficult to land.  Well I guess maybe all the politicians underselling the effectiveness, or underselling the magnitude of the disease, could be a significant contributor.  Come on folks, get with the program, people are dying.  Wear a mask.

Online Summer Program

We completed our Drama Online Summer Program this week.  When CMU cancelled Summer PreCollege they charged us with putting together an online program.  Just to keep the distinction between this program and what we've done before we've been calling it the "Drama Online Summer Program."  The DP program had five courses: Basic Design, Science of Scenery, Drawing, Storyology, Technical Production, and Stage Management.  We lost Stagecraft, Drafting, and Lighting Design from our historic program - and Media Design, which had been added recently also didn't appear this summer.  The latter classes are all significantly hands on and pretty gear heavy; all things that make remote learning difficult.  Part of me wonders if after this coming year, with all of our classes having to be offered hybrid, if we will have a handle on how to offer some of that content remotely should we have to consider on online program again.  Obviously though the hope is that next year we will be back to in person Drama Precollege.  I don't know if I would bet on that though.  The program also shrunk from six weeks to four, and part of the reduction in content also had to do with reducing the length of the time commitment during the day - and hoping that we'd be able to catch all time zones with one section of each class.  Overall it appears that things have gone pretty well.  I feel like I didn't get to know the students as well as I would have in person.  Going forward I think I will have to work on how to break down the experience through the screen more effectively.

Sports

Sports are back.  So far I've watched pieces of Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey.  Prior to that I kept tuning in to reruns of previous AUDL Ultimate games.  I hadn't watched them the first time through, so it was pretty much like watching games in real time.  But I guess I am a fickle fan, as when presented with the opportunity to watch live games I jumped at the chance.  The hockey games are playoffs, and I really enjoy playoff hockey, so having that back is great.  I think the sound design behind the crowd noise and the arena music are really a value add.  The Pens lost game one, so if they don't come back soon I may not last too long with the NHL.  While I like having the distraction, it is nice to have live sports back on TV, I do wonder about the ethical questions around resources being hoarded by professional sports that could likely find (perhaps an arguably better) use in some other sector.  There was an NBA Instagram post the other day that showed a palette of Clorox Wipes in the background, completely derailing whatever the post was supposed to be about in favor of discussion of how it was possible that the NBA was able to get in bulk what the general public hasn't been able to find in stores for months.  Wipes are one thing, but the sports leagues are also burning through a huge number of COVID tests and the lab capacity to process all the tests.  I like having sports.  I'd much rather have easy access to quick turnaround testing.  I am uncertain our collective priorities are in the right place.  No, maybe I am not uncertain.

Rockabye Baby

Last year during one of the undergrad interviews a prospective student asked me what the last album I had listened to was.  It turned out it was "Lullaby Renditions of Pink Floyd."  Sabian's daycare had been playing this music in the nap room.  It took me more than a week to recognize it, but eventually it was clear that it was "Hey You" from "The Wall."  I thought this was the coolest thing ever and found it even cooler that it was on Amazon music and we could stream it on the echo.  During the interview, Joe Pino informed me that they also were fans in his house, but that they preferred "Lullaby Renditions of Nine Inch Nails."  I immediately added that to our frequent nap rotation.  Eventually I just asked the Alexa to shuffle songs by Rockabye Baby, which was how I discovered that there were "Lullaby Renditions of..." The Beatles and Journey and Led Zeppelin.  I don't know how it took me so long, but last week I finally did a search and came up with the whole discography, and - oh my - it is comprehensive.  Since then we've added Prince, The Beastie Boys, Songs from Hamilton, Fleetwood Mac, Rush, and The Police.  I'm not sure if Sabian can tell the difference, but I am thrilled.  They have all kinds of more contemporary titles as well, but I don't see myself using them; not when I can ask for The Eagles.

Four Things

Social Media  

For as long as there has been Facebook and as long as there has been Twitter - and more recently as long as there's been Instagram there has been a tension between being accessible to students and preserving both their own and my own privacy.  My Twitter is unlocked.  When a student friends me on Facebook I typically accept.  Generally I don't accept requests from summer students as they are somewhat younger.  But my regular year students are adults and it has been my STOP to accept those requests.  My Instagram is open.  As a weird hybrid between Facebook and Twitter I really can't wrap my head around who I should be following and who should be following me.  For a little while last Spring access to the Frosh common Instagram account became a cause of sorts with my finally getting access after the Critical Path project.  I am apparently locked out again, but I don't have the oomph to follow up.  Yesterday was a lousy day to have access to students on Facebook.  It is often a really good backdoor into student discourse.  In this particular case I probably would have been better off without.  No way of knowing if it was directed to me personally, but I was part of a "they" called ignorant and insensitive among other things.  I should meter my reading better.

We Just Don't Know

There's a lot of angst in the community about what things are going to be like in the Fall.  On top of that there's a significant amount of anxiety around what the Spring is going to be like at the school.  The truth of the matter is that we really just don't know.  The situation in terms of information is nearly identical between the student body and the faculty.  That information vacuum is filling with speculation and misinformation.  Much of that comes with accompanying attribution of intent that is just science fiction.  I have my own ideas about why things are going one way and not the other, but I am doing my darndest to keep those thoughts between Mrs. TANBI and myself.  You won't be reading them here.  We just don't know and we're just not going to know for quite some time.  Based on what I've observed to date even if we did know something today we might not know again tomorrow, and then again the day after that.  Today there was discussion of a Spring production calendar and I had the thought that there ought to be an announcement that the next Spring production calendar would not be released until mid-October.  At least that would let some of the air out of the balloon as folks wouldn't think there was a calendar and we were just keeping it a secret.  When we know something we say something.  We just don't know.

Books

We're trying like crazy to get out of the storage unit we rented when we redid the basement last Spring (like Spring of 2019).  A not insignificant percentage of the volume involved are moving boxes full of books.  Carton after carton of scifi and fantasy books of mine and a far more diverse range of titles that are my wife's.  In the old house there were a lot of book shelves and so all of these books had a home (although some of them actually made the trip here from my folks house in Chicago).  When we moved into the new house we decided we weren't going to make bookshelves a prominent decorating feature, deferring the decision of what to do with them until we solved the basement.  Now that the basement solution is in process there doesn't appear to be a significant amount of space for books.  So now we need to figure out what to do with all these books.  Due to the new normal the library hasn't been taking donations, and anyway, like so many things, this volume was a significant investment at purchase.  It feels like we ought to be able to recoup something at liquidation.  A long time ago I brought four cartons of books to a Half Price Books and left with $6, so that doesn't seem fruitful.  I've been thinking about a sidewalk book sale: $1 per paperback, 3 for $2 & $2 per hardcover, 3 for $4.  Mrs. TANBI thinks that's a wasted effort.  One of the local churches does an annual book sale.  I'll have to look into their donation rules.  Anyone want a bunch of books?

Where is the Soup?

For a very, very long time now I have been on a 5:2 fast diet that limits my calories two days a week to 600 overall.  Also for a very long time a staple of my getting through this limitation has been Progresso Chicken Tortilla soup.  A can of this soup is 200 calories, so the soup with a handful of saltines fits into 300 calories which is the meal allowance I am working with.  For more than a year my dinner twice a week was a can of this soup.  But now I have a problem: the world is out of soup.  The tortilla soup is not available to begin with at the local grocery chain.  I reup at Target.  But for the last, pretty much as long as I can remember now, neither of the Targets that are close has had it on the shelf.  I actually just looked and it says it is there at the SLiberty store - but truth be told I have seen it on the app and then gotten to the store and had it not be there.  Canned soup is apparently a staple of everyone's pandemic planning, and the Chicken Tortilla is apparently pretty good soup to more people than just me.  I've expanded the plan to cover more varieties.  The governing principle is that the whole can needs to be less than 300 calories.  There are multiple Progresso varieties that meet the need as well as a few Campbell's Chunky soups.  But even with a broader list results on a given trip to the store are hit & miss.  I have questions...  Why can't stores keep up with demand?  Why can't I order a case?  The Target app won't ship to my location.  Amazon has soup by the case, but a case is $30, for 6 cans; in the store that  would be closer to $12.  That's a healthy markup.  Gonna have to look for more options I guess.