30 something years ago, Robert Clary came to my high school to give a speech. Not sure if he did the same thing for HAG and HSB.
We were buzzing that... haha.. yes, it was LaBeau from Hogan's Heroes and he was at our school for a full student body assembly. But the laughter soon turned serious.
Clary showed us the tattoed number on his arm and started telling us of his experience as a Jew being rounded up in France. He had each section of bleacher crowd into a smaller set of bleacher rows, the same size as a train car. He told us to imagine what it was like to be in a suffocating rail car so hot, so packed tight that one could not sit. No food. No water. No bathrooms. You messed yourself standing up. And you knew that some camps were not just prisons, but extermination camps. And people died on the journey, so you were smashed against dead people for the ride. Kids started to squirm being packed tightly and he told us "now imagine doing it for several days and nights straight". You could hear a pin drop.
Then he started telling us what it was like to be sent to camp in Poland. And then he told us it got worse, when he got sent to Buchenwald. Even as kids, we knew what even a teenage Clary knew. We knew that Buchenawald meant you were worked to death if you didn't get summarily executed, forced into sexual slavery, had medical experiments done on you, or sent to the infamous showers. He told us of being forced to stay into the showers overnight as torture.
He told more stories. You could hear kids audibly weeping at the horrors that man can inflict upon other men. I have never heard a more powerful speech.
Clary is still alive today. And for the life of me, I can't understand how this day and age we can have nazi sympathizers and holocaust deniers. It was not that long ago for god's sake.
No 1 went to Catholic school and one teacher did a whole lot of teaching of the holocaust. The joke was the Catholic school kids were learning more about the holocaust than the ones going to Jewish schools. There were a couple of holocaust survivors that came to speak over and over and they took a 1 day trip to the Holocaust museum in DC.
He also went to my high school. One of my first jobs was working for an architecture firm owned by a holocaust survivor. He had a tattoo on his arm. He never discussed it except once said it was "horrific" when I asked him about it he said "I don't want to terrorize you with the details - we have work to do!"
We had a neighbor in our old neighborhood who had survived one of the labor camps. He said that he was ready to give up and asked one of guards to shoot him, and the guard replied he wasn't worth the price of a bullet. So he decided that come what may, they weren't going to work him to death. Apparently the way he did it was to somehow scavenge a belt that he used to protect his hands in the mines, and to occasionally switch lines during shift changes so he could look like he was leaving a shift and catch some extra rest.
"I can't understand how this day and age we can have nazi sympathizers and holocaust deniers." I have never understood this either - didn't know Clary was a survivor.
We were in the same friends group and had been friends for a year or so. For a while we had only ever hung out together in larger gatherings, but things took off as soon as we started spending time together without all our other friends around (giving her rides home, going to lunch, etc.).
I was acting in a play and she was working on backstage stuff (running the lights, setting props, etc.). I found her attractive, but we didn't start dating immediately. We were in the same friend group for about a year before she also confessed her attraction to me.
in my defense, i thought she was great and liked her plenty during fake tutoring.
but as a grad student TA you try to tell yourself that you are not supposed to sleep w/ the students no matter how attractive they might be or are flinging themselves at you.
not my wife, and not the average behavior, but other young women would noticeably unbutton an extra one or two buttons on their shirts to get more attention in office hours and presumably better grades.
When I was married she moved in upstairs in the house we were renting. My roommates were in the bottom back apt and she and some people she met at CalSo moved into the upstairs apt the next year. HSB moved in with them our sr year (I think it was).
Did we? I guess so. I do remember play scattergories and Al was just writing anything that was sex related for all his answers. Maybe that was the party you're talking about.
Wife's direct report got Covid despite being shut in and only venturing out to get groceries with a mask on. She has no idea where she got it.
Wife's colleague's parents in London were shut-ins. They got Covid waiting in line to get their first vaccine shot. Father in ICU and doesn't look good.
I mentioned having a scare a few weeks ago - my daughter's friend who got the 'rona is pretty sure she got it at a local hardware store. It had to shut down for a short while while staff recovered and the place got fumigated.
It has proven to be very insidious. Which is why I wish all the rush back people who have gotten away with it on sheer luck would listen to people who know what they are doing, if just for a moment or two.
I fear that people have got "comfortable" when they dodge comparatively infrequent super-spreader events and are going to leave themselves vulnerable to the newer, more contagious variants. Those vaccines can't come through quickly enough.
As much as I'm a proponent of not only vaccines, but early adoption of them, I have worried about creating super-spreader events in the process of distributing the vaccine.
Keeping distance from people while in lines has been hard. People seem to keep reverting to lining up with only a couple feet between people, even when those 6-foot-apart markers are on the ground.
well, they control the appointments, so they know how to space it out. It would be a little harder to scale up, but I bet we could find mall and supermarket parking lots here that could be used in a pinch.
We did covid testing at Dodgers Stadium a couple days before NYE and it was almost a 2hr wait and about 20min to actually get the testing done once we got into the parking lot. It's all routed through one entrance and the line wrapped counter clockwise around from Elysian Park all the way to the exit on the 110S. I can't imagine their vaccination set up is any better.
I got my shot at Kaiser yesterday. Wish it was in cars, but it wasn't. On one hand, everyone was really good at wearing masks, and rooms had far fewer people than usual. On the other hand, people were rather careless about social distancing while walking in the hallways, and did not follow the entrance/exit signs.
That's one thing I noticed when my mom got her shot. They had the room for the 15 min observation period and it seemed fairly packed. People definitely sitting less than 6 feet apart. maybe 2-3 at the most. I only glanced in.
We're going to get our first snow tonight. Perhaps up to an inch. It won't stick more than eight hours, but that won't stop everyone panic-buying bread, milk, and eggs today.
Maybe an inch of snow overnight going into yesterday, but it turned to rain and everything melted pretty quickly. Looks like much of the mid-Atlantic will have a steady snowfall from Sunday morning through late Monday night with about 4-8" of accumulation.
Having lived through an earthquake (1989), hurricanes (2004-5 streak in FL), and tornadoes (multiple outbreaks in AL) I can say for sure that tornadoes are easily the most scary. Not even close. A couple of times it was headed for us and we packed us , the twins in their car seats, and the dogs into a tiny downstairs interior bathroom with crib mattresses ready to throw over us if it hit. Absolutely terrifying.
Tornadoes have always seemed like the most terrifying, although earthquakes are less predictable you can build to standards that minimize damage. Hurricanes can be evacuated away from. Tornadoes just seem terribly unpredictable and if you aren't in a safe structure when the alarms go off you are just at the whim of the weather gods.
Tornado and wildfire are about the same on the terrifying/not-much-you-can-do scale. It's such a helpless feeling know it's coming towards you and all you can do is cower and hope for the best.
the missus grew up in Michigan and is somehow of the view that tornadoes are _less_ frightening than earthquakes. I think that's because she grew up houses with stout basements and the tornadoes in Washtenaw county followed pretty predictable paths, so your odds of a bad experience were low, as opposed to the breadth of an earthquake.
You won't be surprised to learn that I don't agree with this at all.
I had The Weather Channel on while I ate lunch. DC has gone over 700 days without a snowfall of an inch or more. They're teasing the possibility for late this weekend. A couple days ago we got enough to coat parked cars and a trace on dirt areas.
Our atmospheric river is delayed another day after stalling over the central coast. Should get ~2 inches of rain early Thursday through Friday afternoon. Currently windy and "cold" for L.A. (~52)
Hovering just above freezing in western Oregon. Yesterday's wintry mix wasn't much except at elevation. Supposed to get a little warmer in the days to come (but not "warm"), some more showery than others. Wet weekend coming. Standard winter weather for around here.
My buddy is a big gamer & used to get super pissed when he seemingly saw a GameStop sign in a strip-mall from afar, only for it to turn out to be SmashBurger...
I tend to think of them as a mediocre team because they were middling when we played them in '13 and '14, but Fitzgerald has an impressive tenure with them: 9 winning seasons, 3 10-win seasons, 2 division titles in the last 3 years.
Yet another OOC team who is cursed in the years we play them...
Oregon's RT Sam Moore will return for his seventh year. The Ducks return their entire offensive line. Moore is a hell of an offensive lineman. He dominates when he locks up.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is getting added to the House Committee on Education. She literally believes that the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas school shooting was a faked a false flag event created by George Soros and Antifa crisis-actors.
My take on this is that it's primarily symbolic because the justice system is primarily done at the county level, and state to a lesser extent. Federal is a tiny portion of crimes.
I think other than Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling, no others were close. So you had enough writers that are not selecting them based on steroids and being an ass. And there were some writers that submitted blank ballots. Usually you would have the veteran's committee selections but they didn't meet this year due to covid. So I think that's why you have no selections this year. In other years when no one got the 75%, you still had the veterans selections and others.
From yesterday's DBD discussion I wonder what voters are going to do with ARod. And if they vote in ARod does that mean they'll also vote in Bonds and Clemens?
And with Schilling begging to be left off the ballot next year (his last) and the Baseball Writers asking the HOF not to, I wonder if he is on if you'll see votes for him plummet as writers leave him off.
There are some speculations that it would actually be tougher for Bonds/Clemens to make it via the Era Committee (the newer name for the Veterans Committee) because their peers would despise the cheaters more, but I think after another 10 years or so, they will probably get in.
As much as ESPN is normalizing ARod (the guy even showed up to the Inauguration a week ago), I still don't think he makes the hall any time soon.
UPCOMING ERAS COMMITTEES ELECTIONS
Golden Days: December of 2021 for inclusion in the Class of 2022
Early Baseball: December of 2021 for inclusion in the Class of 2022
Today's Game: December of 2022 for inclusion in the Class of 2023
Modern Baseball: December of 2023 for inclusion in the Class of 2024
Today's Game: December of 2024 for inclusion in the Class of 2025
Modern Baseball: December of 2025 for inclusion in the Class of 2026
Golden Days: December of 2026 for inclusion in the Class of 2027
Also, I was just looking back on the only time that I have been to Cooperstown, for the 2014 induction weekend. On a crowded street (on the afternoon before the induction ceremony), I did get to see (and took photos of) Lou Brock, Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Tommy Lasorda, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro, and Hank Aaron...all of whom passed away within the past year. I guess their passing have made that trip even more special now.
I think as long as the older guys are still alive it'll be tough for him to get in. Once they start passing and it's people closer to his era then he may have a chance.
Cheapskate A's refuse to offer a decent deal to Marcus Semien, as a result he goes off to a one-year $18 million deal with the Blue Jays, who have already upgraded during the offseason by signing George Springer. Scott Ostler calls for Fisher to sell the team....
Marcus Semien was one of the best defensive shortstop in 2018 and 2019 after being mediocre before that. His 2020 was a step down both offensively and defensively, but he *might* be able to rebuild his free agency market next offseason with a big bounce back year since the deal with the Blue Jays is just for one year. It's just that his contract ended up being relatively affordable that's got to annoy the A's fans for their team not spending any money.
Yes he had some good years, but showed a lot of regression last year. Nobody was happier to see him improve his on field play than me. And then one thing went wrong, then another, and another. I remember tweeting out last season how 2015 Marcus found his way back to the field
It's a short season though and defensive metrics are notoriously fickle. With this move to 2nd base, he could either be phenomenal or be hated by the defensive metrics depending on how the Blue Jays use the shift, etc.
Yeah, if it was the looming free agency that affected him last year, he would have to overcome that pressure this year.
I know the Dodgers were considering him both as an option in case Seager doesn't re-sign after this year or as a replacement for Kiké since he can play multiple positions but not at 18M/yr. Sounds like he got a great deal, even if it's only for 1 year. The drawback for him is the SS market is going to be LOADED after this year. Seager (hopefully not), Story, Lindor, Correa, Baez, just to name a few. Maybe he feels after the big 5 are signed to huge contracts that he can get more just because of the market. Although, with the CBA expiring after this year who knows how big a contract they can be signed to.
Men's Gymnastics' first meet this Saturday will be virtual vs. ASU. Cal will perform from Berkeley while ASU from Tempe. Not sure where the judges will be for this.
Typically, I would just expect Men's Gymnastics to have meets vs. Stanford, but Stanford has stricter Santa Clara County guidelines and could not really train for most of their sports.
Men's Soccer announced their spring schedule today. They will play their home matches at Witter Rugby Field. Women's Soccer is playing their home matches at Edward Stadium and there are also Track and Field still going on, but I got to wonder if this is the program experimenting with a new venue because they will lose Edward Stadium land to the University soon and does this imply that we might not have a Rugby season (with so many regional collegiate rugby programs not having that varsity status to get health protection from their Universities).
Does Berkeley/Alameda County allow contact sports, like Santa Clara county doesn't? Maybe some of it is that they team can't play at Witter. Also for some reason I've always assumed there was an H in the name. I guess I just never noticed.
My speculation is that things are fine on Cal's end to play matches but most of their typical opponents do not have the protection of being university sponsored sports to train/play games. Life/Arkansas State/Lindenwood have spring schedules up for this spring, but they are all quite far away.
Keith Heyward was certainly a welcome surprise. With DeRuyter taking a back into what we thought was a retirement or a jump to another program, this is definitely a good plug and play sort of action. In about 3-4 years however I do wonder about how Wilcox will hire a new coach to fill his position because lets be honest he has no reason to stay with us for a while. Having new blood on the sideline would be inevitable with DeRuyter's progress, but I think for now this a big short term gain with questionable long term effects.
Heyward is a Pac-12 lifer (so far). Played and started coaching at OSU. Took an upgraded job at Washington, leaving OSU ahead of an impending disaster. Left Washington for an upgraded situation at Oregon. Hit a ceiling in Eugene, so the move to Cal is to an opportunity with now the best defensive system of coaches in the P-12 North, and at a place where his strength (recruiting) will be a standout on the staff, rather than just another in a collection of strong recruiters (even with the addition of DeRuyter) in Eugene. The biggest question is how to blend him & Sirmon? The risk to Cal would seem to be an eventual jump to USC or UCLA if the incumbent leaves and there is a rebuild. That would seem to be true of everyone on the Bears' staff though.
Byrne gets my vote based on working at multiple Pac12 schools plus his current gig being the AD for a big boy football factory who knows what it takes to make Pac football relevant
3. Pac-12 reputation: Achieving parity with conference schedules (everyone is on an 8-game or 9-game schedule) is essential. 8-game conference schedules give teams chances to pad their schedules with an extra cupcake which 1) makes it easier for more teams in that conference to get to bowl games (thus enhancing conference reputation) and 2) improves most of those teams' strength of schedule because they are playing several teams whose win totals are inflated by one thanks to that extra OOC opponent.
Another way of looking at it: every extra conference game guarantees 6 more losses across the Pac-12.
Hear Hear! Too many conference games and not enough cupcakes. Heck, I want Cal to start every year 4-0, flirt with a Top 25 ranking before the inevitable mid-season collapse.
I'm hoping the fact that the SEC discovered that they actually CAN play more than 8 conference games and survive, and their strength of schedule is actually better, and the networks will pressure them for more conference games, and the better audience better games draw, will prompt the SEC to go to 9 games. The rub for the SEC & ACC are their 4 rivalry games that are every bit a quality game that many of their other teams do not have. That said, they could overcome that if they want to.
I don't want to fall back to 8 games (good games trump easy wins; if you want a better bowl/ranking, win more!), and I know most of the campuses do not want to do so.
Doing so would require some sort of a working agreement with the Mt. West, and I'm not sure they are willing to do it on terms some in the Pac-12 would insist on.
Plenty of Pac-12 teams also have regular non-conference rivalries (USC and Furd vs. Notre Dame, Utah vs. BYU, Colorado vs. Colorado St.). They can figure out how to keep the SEC/ACC nonconference rivalries going too.
I agree with the conference schedules thing. I would rather see a change to all conferences either play a full round robin, or a minimum 9 game conf schedule. And you cannot county any FCS or DII wins to your minimum for bowl eligibility.
No more than one 7:30pm game per week. I'm much more interested in Pac-12 football than the average East Coaster, and I don't even bother watching the night games.
No more than 3 per team per season except for the Arizona teams that have to play early at home until November or else its not safe., None at the NW & Mtn schools after Thanksgiving. Night games those places that late in the year are mostly just brutal.
I think that's the key everywhere but Arizona; they need to be the exception, not the norm. They used to be a fun novelty, a big game. Then, it got overdone.
Right, I remember there usually being a kind of electric buzz in the stadium when we were featured in a night game. Then during the Dykes era it all faded away because we were always playing at night (and with Dykes' offense the games lasted forever).
If they can make it work, but the Arizonas want to finally play in the day come November (though I've been at Sun Devil at night the weekend before Thanksgiving), and the LAs would be the only places left for November.
Definitely prefer Berkeley in the day (especially if Cal is never going to upgrade the deficient lighting on the east side), but Stanford isn't always that bad in November. A few years ago, we were there the Saturday before Thanksgiving I think, and it was in the upper 50s, and there were a couple of showers. Someone from the school apologized for the "bad" weather, and I told them not to worry; none of us had been that warm or dry in over a month.
Really only been chilly once in Berkeley; rain is the much bigger concern (there's really no place with any cover). One of the good things about Palo Alto is the 360 degree concourse and some seats that are under the upper deck; you can take refuge from the rain, though for some reason (luck), I've not encountered nearly the amount of rain there as across the Bay.
It's especially true of football that a career-ending injury could require years of rehab, and in a country that apparently is wholly unwilling to provide universal medical coverage, I think it's the least that the conference could do.
some article about a house in Orinda (which is right next to where i grew up in Moraga) in the Times today. i guess it is good to have 7000 sq ft on 3.4 acres during a pandemic.
Lots of renovations happening in my neighborhood in Whitepeopleville...I mean Orinda. Full tear downs and rebuilds, gutting to the studs redos, and a TON of yards and other more minor renovations happening. My landlord remains unimpressed but it keeps my rent lower so meh I guess.
Because Mr. Dornbusch, 43, and Ms. Dornbusch, 37, routinely worked from home before the pandemic, they built two dedicated home offices. To support their business interests — they own Gemstone Vineyard together, and Mr. Dornbusch is the founder and chief executive of EnTribe, a digital media company — they added an expansive wine room stocked with hundreds of bottles, along with a home theater.
For their daughters, Ruby, 4, and Poppy, 1, there is a dedicated playroom, as well as an apartment for an au pair. There is also a home gym and a pool, which make it easy to sneak in a quick workout at any time of day.
“It was important to us to build a house where everybody has their own zones to work and be productive, for us to run our businesses, and for the kids to play, be creative and get outside,” Ms. Dornbusch said. “We designed this house wanting to have a resort-living feeling at home.”
Auschwitz liberated 76 years ago today
FET
30 something years ago, Robert Clary came to my high school to give a speech. Not sure if he did the same thing for HAG and HSB.
We were buzzing that... haha.. yes, it was LaBeau from Hogan's Heroes and he was at our school for a full student body assembly. But the laughter soon turned serious.
Clary showed us the tattoed number on his arm and started telling us of his experience as a Jew being rounded up in France. He had each section of bleacher crowd into a smaller set of bleacher rows, the same size as a train car. He told us to imagine what it was like to be in a suffocating rail car so hot, so packed tight that one could not sit. No food. No water. No bathrooms. You messed yourself standing up. And you knew that some camps were not just prisons, but extermination camps. And people died on the journey, so you were smashed against dead people for the ride. Kids started to squirm being packed tightly and he told us "now imagine doing it for several days and nights straight". You could hear a pin drop.
Then he started telling us what it was like to be sent to camp in Poland. And then he told us it got worse, when he got sent to Buchenwald. Even as kids, we knew what even a teenage Clary knew. We knew that Buchenawald meant you were worked to death if you didn't get summarily executed, forced into sexual slavery, had medical experiments done on you, or sent to the infamous showers. He told us of being forced to stay into the showers overnight as torture.
He told more stories. You could hear kids audibly weeping at the horrors that man can inflict upon other men. I have never heard a more powerful speech.
Clary is still alive today. And for the life of me, I can't understand how this day and age we can have nazi sympathizers and holocaust deniers. It was not that long ago for god's sake.
I don't remember him coming to Campo.
No 1 went to Catholic school and one teacher did a whole lot of teaching of the holocaust. The joke was the Catholic school kids were learning more about the holocaust than the ones going to Jewish schools. There were a couple of holocaust survivors that came to speak over and over and they took a 1 day trip to the Holocaust museum in DC.
He also went to my high school. One of my first jobs was working for an architecture firm owned by a holocaust survivor. He had a tattoo on his arm. He never discussed it except once said it was "horrific" when I asked him about it he said "I don't want to terrorize you with the details - we have work to do!"
We had a neighbor in our old neighborhood who had survived one of the labor camps. He said that he was ready to give up and asked one of guards to shoot him, and the guard replied he wasn't worth the price of a bullet. So he decided that come what may, they weren't going to work him to death. Apparently the way he did it was to somehow scavenge a belt that he used to protect his hands in the mines, and to occasionally switch lines during shift changes so he could look like he was leaving a shift and catch some extra rest.
"I can't understand how this day and age we can have nazi sympathizers and holocaust deniers." I have never understood this either - didn't know Clary was a survivor.
Married or monogamous dating people of the DBD: How did you meet your partner?
In high school in central FL...but we didn't date until 9 years later when I moved to AL for grad school.
We were in the same friends group and had been friends for a year or so. For a while we had only ever hung out together in larger gatherings, but things took off as soon as we started spending time together without all our other friends around (giving her rides home, going to lunch, etc.).
we worked together as valets at a restaurant
I was acting in a play and she was working on backstage stuff (running the lights, setting props, etc.). I found her attractive, but we didn't start dating immediately. We were in the same friend group for about a year before she also confessed her attraction to me.
at a friend's BBQ
somewhat embarrassingly, at a grad student social hour.
Why is that embarrassing?
I mean we all know that I'm a massive nerd but that's like taking it to the next level of nerdery
In a Co-op at Berkeley, friends at first (for a short time) in a group of four friends.
At a Bowles Hall party where Everclear punch was served. Freshman year. Didn't get married for another 5 years, though. Divorced in 2010.
my wife faked needing tutoring in Physics to get to know me.
but after all that i didnt ask her out.
so then she faked being interested in playing tennis ...
hahahahaha, clueless, you are.
in my defense, i thought she was great and liked her plenty during fake tutoring.
but as a grad student TA you try to tell yourself that you are not supposed to sleep w/ the students no matter how attractive they might be or are flinging themselves at you.
not my wife, and not the average behavior, but other young women would noticeably unbutton an extra one or two buttons on their shirts to get more attention in office hours and presumably better grades.
I dont think you were doing grad student TAing very well then. Its not like you were in it for the $...
When I was married she moved in upstairs in the house we were renting. My roommates were in the bottom back apt and she and some people she met at CalSo moved into the upstairs apt the next year. HSB moved in with them our sr year (I think it was).
good times. we all met on the first week of school as the women upstairs were hosting a party
Did we? I guess so. I do remember play scattergories and Al was just writing anything that was sex related for all his answers. Maybe that was the party you're talking about.
At a part time job after college. She was dating someone at the time.
Today in Covid
Wife's direct report got Covid despite being shut in and only venturing out to get groceries with a mask on. She has no idea where she got it.
Wife's colleague's parents in London were shut-ins. They got Covid waiting in line to get their first vaccine shot. Father in ICU and doesn't look good.
I mentioned having a scare a few weeks ago - my daughter's friend who got the 'rona is pretty sure she got it at a local hardware store. It had to shut down for a short while while staff recovered and the place got fumigated.
It has proven to be very insidious. Which is why I wish all the rush back people who have gotten away with it on sheer luck would listen to people who know what they are doing, if just for a moment or two.
I fear that people have got "comfortable" when they dodge comparatively infrequent super-spreader events and are going to leave themselves vulnerable to the newer, more contagious variants. Those vaccines can't come through quickly enough.
As much as I'm a proponent of not only vaccines, but early adoption of them, I have worried about creating super-spreader events in the process of distributing the vaccine.
Keeping distance from people while in lines has been hard. People seem to keep reverting to lining up with only a couple feet between people, even when those 6-foot-apart markers are on the ground.
I've found that the best predictor for people fucking up line markers is the average age of the customer - the older they are, the closer they stand.
people around here have generally been good about spacing lineups.
Everywhere but Home Depot has been good around here. Trader Joe's in Eagle Rock has done an exceptional job.
do it in cars - I'm serious. My daughters' pediatric practice did flu shots this way, worked _really_ well.
In some cases, that appears to have worked well if appointments are well managed, so that the line isn't a mile long.
well, they control the appointments, so they know how to space it out. It would be a little harder to scale up, but I bet we could find mall and supermarket parking lots here that could be used in a pinch.
We did covid testing at Dodgers Stadium a couple days before NYE and it was almost a 2hr wait and about 20min to actually get the testing done once we got into the parking lot. It's all routed through one entrance and the line wrapped counter clockwise around from Elysian Park all the way to the exit on the 110S. I can't imagine their vaccination set up is any better.
I got my shot at Kaiser yesterday. Wish it was in cars, but it wasn't. On one hand, everyone was really good at wearing masks, and rooms had far fewer people than usual. On the other hand, people were rather careless about social distancing while walking in the hallways, and did not follow the entrance/exit signs.
That's one thing I noticed when my mom got her shot. They had the room for the 15 min observation period and it seemed fairly packed. People definitely sitting less than 6 feet apart. maybe 2-3 at the most. I only glanced in.
Our 15 minute room had good spacing, the chairs were all at least 6 feet apart, and the chairs were less than half full.
My mom gets her vaccination (Moderna) tomorrow. She is over 65.
Case against Harvey Weinstein's studio (Weinstein Co.) nets $17m settlement, but almost nothing for victims after legal fees.
https://variety.com/2021/film/uncategorized/weinstein-victims-bankruptcy-plan-1234891758/
every day is lawyer day
Well no one wins but the dickhead attorneys
Weather
We're going to get our first snow tonight. Perhaps up to an inch. It won't stick more than eight hours, but that won't stop everyone panic-buying bread, milk, and eggs today.
give us an over/under on abandoned cars on the side of the highway
Maybe an inch of snow overnight going into yesterday, but it turned to rain and everything melted pretty quickly. Looks like much of the mid-Atlantic will have a steady snowfall from Sunday morning through late Monday night with about 4-8" of accumulation.
I should look to see what the latest is - last I saw the Euro model was predicting the most snow, but it tends to do that.
Tornado in Alabama. This guy's house didn't take a direct hit, but it is a good illustration of why you go to the center of your house.
https://twitter.com/MSUZeppfan/status/1353964814029221893
Having lived through an earthquake (1989), hurricanes (2004-5 streak in FL), and tornadoes (multiple outbreaks in AL) I can say for sure that tornadoes are easily the most scary. Not even close. A couple of times it was headed for us and we packed us , the twins in their car seats, and the dogs into a tiny downstairs interior bathroom with crib mattresses ready to throw over us if it hit. Absolutely terrifying.
Also, this hit about 5 miles from Auntsam's parents in AL. They're fine with no damage but scary for sure.
Tornadoes have always seemed like the most terrifying, although earthquakes are less predictable you can build to standards that minimize damage. Hurricanes can be evacuated away from. Tornadoes just seem terribly unpredictable and if you aren't in a safe structure when the alarms go off you are just at the whim of the weather gods.
Tsunamis (old neighborhood) and wildfires (new neighborhood) also seem much scarier than either earthquakes or hurricanes
Tornado and wildfire are about the same on the terrifying/not-much-you-can-do scale. It's such a helpless feeling know it's coming towards you and all you can do is cower and hope for the best.
the missus grew up in Michigan and is somehow of the view that tornadoes are _less_ frightening than earthquakes. I think that's because she grew up houses with stout basements and the tornadoes in Washtenaw county followed pretty predictable paths, so your odds of a bad experience were low, as opposed to the breadth of an earthquake.
You won't be surprised to learn that I don't agree with this at all.
Scary high winds in the Berkeley Hills last night until 4 am. Lots of rain. Branches everywhere
It was hurricane-esque for sure.
I had The Weather Channel on while I ate lunch. DC has gone over 700 days without a snowfall of an inch or more. They're teasing the possibility for late this weekend. A couple days ago we got enough to coat parked cars and a trace on dirt areas.
Let's do 700 more baby!
Our atmospheric river is delayed another day after stalling over the central coast. Should get ~2 inches of rain early Thursday through Friday afternoon. Currently windy and "cold" for L.A. (~52)
Looking forward to snow capped mountains above the LA basin Friday through however long it sticks around.
My favorite days on the water in winter are those with nice weather in Santa Monica Bay with snow covered San Gabriels in the background.
Hovering just above freezing in western Oregon. Yesterday's wintry mix wasn't much except at elevation. Supposed to get a little warmer in the days to come (but not "warm"), some more showery than others. Wet weekend coming. Standard winter weather for around here.
NYC ... we are getting an arctic blast in the coming days
in fact they cancelled my Fri outdoor SoulCycle class because the high temps are only about 20 deg this weekend.
we are still thinking of heading up to Windham for a day of skiing on Sat though.
Gamestop
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/26/short-sellers-are-down-91-billion-in-january-as-gamestop-leads-squeeze-in-stocks-they-bet-against.html
The danger of the short, especially on margin
Words from Michael Burry of the "Big Short"
https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/big-short-investor-who-once-touted-gamestop-calls-rally-unnatural-insane-and-dangerous-51611707398
The saying in securities is "never stand in the way of money flows. A stock can be mispriced longer than you can stay solvent."
My buddy is a big gamer & used to get super pissed when he seemingly saw a GameStop sign in a strip-mall from afar, only for it to turn out to be SmashBurger...
pqtm
https://miro.medium.com/max/2804/1*qB8AhHl2sEL_LHQQ-92yPQ.jpeg
They've zeroed in on AMC today
Stonks go up!
Elsewhere in college
[Yahoo Sports] Pat Fitzgerald set to sign a bajillion year contract extension with Northwestern
https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1354492959534800903
I tend to think of them as a mediocre team because they were middling when we played them in '13 and '14, but Fitzgerald has an impressive tenure with them: 9 winning seasons, 3 10-win seasons, 2 division titles in the last 3 years.
Yet another OOC team who is cursed in the years we play them...
Some of his salary should go to the other team's blog writers as his scouts...
he's still a self inflated dickbag. He can go eff himself
that makes sense - when you have Pat on the job, you don't need to hire any Pinkerton men to prevent the unions from getting up to their tricks.
With what he's done there, totally makes sense.
Tate Martell becomes the new Mitch Mustaine. Enters the transfer portal. Again.
https://twitter.com/RivalsPortal/status/1354484425820692481
Oregon's RT Sam Moore will return for his seventh year. The Ducks return their entire offensive line. Moore is a hell of an offensive lineman. He dominates when he locks up.
https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2021/01/oregon-ducks-ol-george-moore-returning-in-2021.html
7 year degree plan. Must be taking less than 10 units per semester. And I finished mine in 4 years.
Ten Teams that can crack the Top 25...
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/10-college-football-teams-that-can-crack-the-top-25-and-make-some-noise-in-2021/
Hint: Cal is not one of them.
why would they be?
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is getting added to the House Committee on Education. She literally believes that the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas school shooting was a faked a false flag event created by George Soros and Antifa crisis-actors.
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/republican-who-backed-comments-denying-school-shootings-to-join-house-education-panel/2021/01
She seems like a bad egg.
Biden orders end of private prisons via DOJ.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/26/biden-to-announce-racial-equity-plan-and-sign-executive-actions.html
My take on this is that it's primarily symbolic because the justice system is primarily done at the county level, and state to a lesser extent. Federal is a tiny portion of crimes.
Gotta start somewhere 🤷♂️
Stockholders are up in arms. But who would invest in the stock of private prison companies???
The same folks who invest in defense companies that rely on endless wars in the middle east ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Trump opens the "Office of the Former President" in Florida
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/office-of-the-former-president-trump-florida/
NO, he won't go away....
who's paying for this shit?
Probably the $600 million in donations he siphoned away during the last two-and-a-half months of office.
So now he's less in hock to Deutsche Bank when they call in the loans. In actuality he has a negative net worth.
Nah, he can't use that money for RE.
PRO
Perhaps symbolic of the times, but nobody gets elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Schilling gets close, but no banana.
https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1354211617949552640
What's with the MLB writer's association or whatever it is called? No selections!
They wanted to make sure they didn't put any bad people into the Hall.
Other than all the ones already in there, that is.
I think other than Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling, no others were close. So you had enough writers that are not selecting them based on steroids and being an ass. And there were some writers that submitted blank ballots. Usually you would have the veteran's committee selections but they didn't meet this year due to covid. So I think that's why you have no selections this year. In other years when no one got the 75%, you still had the veterans selections and others.
From yesterday's DBD discussion I wonder what voters are going to do with ARod. And if they vote in ARod does that mean they'll also vote in Bonds and Clemens?
And with Schilling begging to be left off the ballot next year (his last) and the Baseball Writers asking the HOF not to, I wonder if he is on if you'll see votes for him plummet as writers leave him off.
There are some speculations that it would actually be tougher for Bonds/Clemens to make it via the Era Committee (the newer name for the Veterans Committee) because their peers would despise the cheaters more, but I think after another 10 years or so, they will probably get in.
As much as ESPN is normalizing ARod (the guy even showed up to the Inauguration a week ago), I still don't think he makes the hall any time soon.
UPCOMING ERAS COMMITTEES ELECTIONS
Golden Days: December of 2021 for inclusion in the Class of 2022
Early Baseball: December of 2021 for inclusion in the Class of 2022
Today's Game: December of 2022 for inclusion in the Class of 2023
Modern Baseball: December of 2023 for inclusion in the Class of 2024
Today's Game: December of 2024 for inclusion in the Class of 2025
Modern Baseball: December of 2025 for inclusion in the Class of 2026
Golden Days: December of 2026 for inclusion in the Class of 2027
Also, I was just looking back on the only time that I have been to Cooperstown, for the 2014 induction weekend. On a crowded street (on the afternoon before the induction ceremony), I did get to see (and took photos of) Lou Brock, Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Tommy Lasorda, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro, and Hank Aaron...all of whom passed away within the past year. I guess their passing have made that trip even more special now.
I think as long as the older guys are still alive it'll be tough for him to get in. Once they start passing and it's people closer to his era then he may have a chance.
Cheapskate A's refuse to offer a decent deal to Marcus Semien, as a result he goes off to a one-year $18 million deal with the Blue Jays, who have already upgraded during the offseason by signing George Springer. Scott Ostler calls for Fisher to sell the team....
Dang, might not be the greatest player, but one of the best stories and background on the A's... I'm bummed.
eh, IDK if a defensive liability is worth $18M per year
Marcus Semien was one of the best defensive shortstop in 2018 and 2019 after being mediocre before that. His 2020 was a step down both offensively and defensively, but he *might* be able to rebuild his free agency market next offseason with a big bounce back year since the deal with the Blue Jays is just for one year. It's just that his contract ended up being relatively affordable that's got to annoy the A's fans for their team not spending any money.
Yes he had some good years, but showed a lot of regression last year. Nobody was happier to see him improve his on field play than me. And then one thing went wrong, then another, and another. I remember tweeting out last season how 2015 Marcus found his way back to the field
It's a short season though and defensive metrics are notoriously fickle. With this move to 2nd base, he could either be phenomenal or be hated by the defensive metrics depending on how the Blue Jays use the shift, etc.
Yeah, if it was the looming free agency that affected him last year, he would have to overcome that pressure this year.
I know the Dodgers were considering him both as an option in case Seager doesn't re-sign after this year or as a replacement for Kiké since he can play multiple positions but not at 18M/yr. Sounds like he got a great deal, even if it's only for 1 year. The drawback for him is the SS market is going to be LOADED after this year. Seager (hopefully not), Story, Lindor, Correa, Baez, just to name a few. Maybe he feels after the big 5 are signed to huge contracts that he can get more just because of the market. Although, with the CBA expiring after this year who knows how big a contract they can be signed to.
CAL
Men's Gymnastics' first meet this Saturday will be virtual vs. ASU. Cal will perform from Berkeley while ASU from Tempe. Not sure where the judges will be for this.
Typically, I would just expect Men's Gymnastics to have meets vs. Stanford, but Stanford has stricter Santa Clara County guidelines and could not really train for most of their sports.
Men's Soccer announced their spring schedule today. They will play their home matches at Witter Rugby Field. Women's Soccer is playing their home matches at Edward Stadium and there are also Track and Field still going on, but I got to wonder if this is the program experimenting with a new venue because they will lose Edward Stadium land to the University soon and does this imply that we might not have a Rugby season (with so many regional collegiate rugby programs not having that varsity status to get health protection from their Universities).
Does Berkeley/Alameda County allow contact sports, like Santa Clara county doesn't? Maybe some of it is that they team can't play at Witter. Also for some reason I've always assumed there was an H in the name. I guess I just never noticed.
My speculation is that things are fine on Cal's end to play matches but most of their typical opponents do not have the protection of being university sponsored sports to train/play games. Life/Arkansas State/Lindenwood have spring schedules up for this spring, but they are all quite far away.
Go Bears...!
Keith Heyward was certainly a welcome surprise. With DeRuyter taking a back into what we thought was a retirement or a jump to another program, this is definitely a good plug and play sort of action. In about 3-4 years however I do wonder about how Wilcox will hire a new coach to fill his position because lets be honest he has no reason to stay with us for a while. Having new blood on the sideline would be inevitable with DeRuyter's progress, but I think for now this a big short term gain with questionable long term effects.
Heyward is a Pac-12 lifer (so far). Played and started coaching at OSU. Took an upgraded job at Washington, leaving OSU ahead of an impending disaster. Left Washington for an upgraded situation at Oregon. Hit a ceiling in Eugene, so the move to Cal is to an opportunity with now the best defensive system of coaches in the P-12 North, and at a place where his strength (recruiting) will be a standout on the staff, rather than just another in a collection of strong recruiters (even with the addition of DeRuyter) in Eugene. The biggest question is how to blend him & Sirmon? The risk to Cal would seem to be an eventual jump to USC or UCLA if the incumbent leaves and there is a rebuild. That would seem to be true of everyone on the Bears' staff though.
We need good, competent P12 lifers to stay in the P12...
Greg Byrne for Commissioner
That would be fantastic. Current WCC Commish Gloria Nevarez would also be a great hire...former Dir. of Compliance @ Cal and P12 Assoc. Commish/SWA...
Byrne gets my vote based on working at multiple Pac12 schools plus his current gig being the AD for a big boy football factory who knows what it takes to make Pac football relevant
he was at SC for several years and was one of their primary recruiters...
I just read that we should all update our iPhones because there has been some kind of security thing that could be exploited
I did that yesterday. Went very quickly.
If you were the Pac 12 commissioner what would you do to fix:
1. Officiating
2. Pac 12 Network
3. Pac 12 football and its reputation
4. Compensating student athletes
5. Promote and protect non revenue sports
6. Other
3. Pac-12 reputation: Achieving parity with conference schedules (everyone is on an 8-game or 9-game schedule) is essential. 8-game conference schedules give teams chances to pad their schedules with an extra cupcake which 1) makes it easier for more teams in that conference to get to bowl games (thus enhancing conference reputation) and 2) improves most of those teams' strength of schedule because they are playing several teams whose win totals are inflated by one thanks to that extra OOC opponent.
Another way of looking at it: every extra conference game guarantees 6 more losses across the Pac-12.
Hear Hear! Too many conference games and not enough cupcakes. Heck, I want Cal to start every year 4-0, flirt with a Top 25 ranking before the inevitable mid-season collapse.
This is the way.
I'm hoping the fact that the SEC discovered that they actually CAN play more than 8 conference games and survive, and their strength of schedule is actually better, and the networks will pressure them for more conference games, and the better audience better games draw, will prompt the SEC to go to 9 games. The rub for the SEC & ACC are their 4 rivalry games that are every bit a quality game that many of their other teams do not have. That said, they could overcome that if they want to.
I don't want to fall back to 8 games (good games trump easy wins; if you want a better bowl/ranking, win more!), and I know most of the campuses do not want to do so.
Doing so would require some sort of a working agreement with the Mt. West, and I'm not sure they are willing to do it on terms some in the Pac-12 would insist on.
Plenty of Pac-12 teams also have regular non-conference rivalries (USC and Furd vs. Notre Dame, Utah vs. BYU, Colorado vs. Colorado St.). They can figure out how to keep the SEC/ACC nonconference rivalries going too.
I'm all for playing a late season game vs Directional St like a week before Big Game.
I agree with the conference schedules thing. I would rather see a change to all conferences either play a full round robin, or a minimum 9 game conf schedule. And you cannot county any FCS or DII wins to your minimum for bowl eligibility.
No more than one 7:30pm game per week. I'm much more interested in Pac-12 football than the average East Coaster, and I don't even bother watching the night games.
I for one am up with the sickos and degenerate gamblers, but I don't have any demands on my time early Saturday or Sunday mornings.
No more than 3 per team per season except for the Arizona teams that have to play early at home until November or else its not safe., None at the NW & Mtn schools after Thanksgiving. Night games those places that late in the year are mostly just brutal.
I liked the night games at Memorial when they were only once or twice a season. When they started happening constantly they weren't so much fun.
I think that's the key everywhere but Arizona; they need to be the exception, not the norm. They used to be a fun novelty, a big game. Then, it got overdone.
Right, I remember there usually being a kind of electric buzz in the stadium when we were featured in a night game. Then during the Dykes era it all faded away because we were always playing at night (and with Dykes' offense the games lasted forever).
Night games at Berkeley November might not be as bad as NW, but they are still pretty fucking cold, and always damp. Sept-Oct only for that.
I'm up for September and the first half of October night games. After that, not so much.
If they can make it work, but the Arizonas want to finally play in the day come November (though I've been at Sun Devil at night the weekend before Thanksgiving), and the LAs would be the only places left for November.
Definitely prefer Berkeley in the day (especially if Cal is never going to upgrade the deficient lighting on the east side), but Stanford isn't always that bad in November. A few years ago, we were there the Saturday before Thanksgiving I think, and it was in the upper 50s, and there were a couple of showers. Someone from the school apologized for the "bad" weather, and I told them not to worry; none of us had been that warm or dry in over a month.
Really only been chilly once in Berkeley; rain is the much bigger concern (there's really no place with any cover). One of the good things about Palo Alto is the 360 degree concourse and some seats that are under the upper deck; you can take refuge from the rain, though for some reason (luck), I've not encountered nearly the amount of rain there as across the Bay.
Another positive at the farm is that there is always enough room in the stadium to move to a more protected seat if the weather turns.
Pac12 Network. This equals money. Take care of this and you take care of all the other points except Officiating.
1) nothing, I like chaos
2) scrap it for revenue sports, work with the member schools to pay students or local resources to provide basic video of non-revenue sports
3) nothing, east coast bias is what it is
4) not sure. At a minimum I'd have every athlete enrolled in an insurance scheme to pay out for career ending injuries.
5) try and sell the member schools on allocating part of tv revenues directly to non-revenue sports
4) is a very good idea.
Agreed!
It's especially true of football that a career-ending injury could require years of rehab, and in a country that apparently is wholly unwilling to provide universal medical coverage, I think it's the least that the conference could do.
And it would be that expensive if everyone bought into it; these kind of injuries are fairly rare.
WOULDN'T
Lamorinda
some article about a house in Orinda (which is right next to where i grew up in Moraga) in the Times today. i guess it is good to have 7000 sq ft on 3.4 acres during a pandemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/realestate/a-bay-area-home-ideal-for-lockdown.html
Lots of renovations happening in my neighborhood in Whitepeopleville...I mean Orinda. Full tear downs and rebuilds, gutting to the studs redos, and a TON of yards and other more minor renovations happening. My landlord remains unimpressed but it keeps my rent lower so meh I guess.
Well, nice for some.
@I guess you're spending your house in Orinda money on wine@
Because Mr. Dornbusch, 43, and Ms. Dornbusch, 37, routinely worked from home before the pandemic, they built two dedicated home offices. To support their business interests — they own Gemstone Vineyard together, and Mr. Dornbusch is the founder and chief executive of EnTribe, a digital media company — they added an expansive wine room stocked with hundreds of bottles, along with a home theater.
For their daughters, Ruby, 4, and Poppy, 1, there is a dedicated playroom, as well as an apartment for an au pair. There is also a home gym and a pool, which make it easy to sneak in a quick workout at any time of day.
“It was important to us to build a house where everybody has their own zones to work and be productive, for us to run our businesses, and for the kids to play, be creative and get outside,” Ms. Dornbusch said. “We designed this house wanting to have a resort-living feeling at home.”
Punchline: bought it for $3.2m in March 2018 as a fixer-upper. Did $5m in renovations through Butler Armsden.
this is why my neighborhood is filling up with 4500 - 6000 sq ft new builds.
!
No one but retired doctors and lawyers from California can afford that around here.
It's not cheap. If I told you what people were paying for teardowns here you'd probably need to take a few minutes to recover.