Things I bought for the fam over the weekend were mostly stocking stuffers: a bunch of snacks at Trader Joe's, airtags, airpod covers, teeth whitening strips, novelty facial masks, luggage tags, lip balm, Pilot G2 pens
Pretty good for me until I got to work this morning.
One of our youngest staff members was killed in a car accident early Friday morning, going home. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from his vehicle. He was 20 or 21 years old.
It's fair to say that folks in his unit are gutted.
Always a bad deal, but especially annoying to be dealing with an illness/injury on a holiday or other special/significant event. Hope you feel better soon, so it doesn't slop over to Christmas activities.
Kinda crappy. Thanksgiving was canceled due to me being sick. Doctor visit & urgent care due to continued pneumonia - which I don't want to take lightly because I'm going to be out of the country and at elevation for two weeks starting on Friday. Oh, which reminds me - I'll have my computer with me and will be able to publish, but probably not seed comments. And then the Bear's traditional throw-away game wasn't fun to watch. But apart from that, just peachy.
Uneventful? I was online for work on Friday mostly "just in case" as we're between test cycles. My father in law and his wife stayed with us, and they've had some real health & cognition declines over the last year, so it was both a little sad and a little challenging. We also had my sister in law and her family join on Thanksgiving day and a little bit on Friday, which was challenging only insofar as she makes no effort to let anyone know what she's doing - this used to be an irritant when we ended up stuck in the house, but now that my father in law has mobility problems, we weren't going anywhere so oh well.
Still continuing at my sister’s house. My nephews and their significant others and in-laws are gone so it’s just me left. I fly home tomorrow. Just wanted to avoid any crowding at the airport and get a bit cheaper fare.
Real busy. Lots of turkey, some football, had to work some as well. Saw most of the parade and some Christmas shows, and a lot of extended family.
Thanksgiving was late in the calendar, so Christmas activities are already well underway. I could use 4 day weekends every weekend from Veterans' Day thru the weekend following New Years Day.
spent a jolly time watching Everton go from "dogged nullification" to "absolute collapse" against Manchester United yesterday, they're going to have the nicest new stadium in the Championship at this rate.
That was a deeply silly game - I watched it with my father in law who needed an anxiety sherpa and neither of us could quite believe that Michigan won, but a good result nevertheless.
Missed 95% of it putting up outside Xmas lights & decorations, but every time I stepped in to get more lights or some hot coffee, I looked at the score and thought, wow, Ohio St still not as good as advertised. It was glorious.
I didn’t see it on the forecast, but there’s a very light covering on the streets this morning in NE Iowa. Already up to 20 degrees so I should be able to get out and get some exercise later.
Wild Robot (theater, 11/19, WNB). Well animated and beautiful, but it's a bad screenplay adaptation by Christopher Sanders. The story doesn't have a well-defined conflict, so you don't know what the characters are working towards necessarily, which means there is a lot of activity on the screen - but it's all action, not a story. And the outcome is never in doubt, so it's not very satisfying. Not horrible, but wife and I wish we had skipped it.
[Former PAC] #1 Oregon beats UW 49-21, USC loses to #5 Notre Dame 49-35, UCLA beats Fresno State 20-13 but is not bowl eligible, #25 Colorado beat Oklahoma State Gundy's 52-0, Utah beat UCF 28-14, #16 ASU beats Arizona to punch their ticket to the Big 12 championship, Oregon State loses to #11 Boise State 34-18 as Jeanty rushes for 226, and Wazzu craps the bed by losing to lowly Wyoming 15-14 by giving up a 4th and 14 TD with 24 seconds left.
In a new high in Couging It, WSU, after starting 8-1 and in the CFP playoff chase/conversation. blows a 4th quarter lead, for the 3rd week in a row (2 of the losses in the closing seconds), all to teams that had and still have losing records.
In a possibly related event, "Cougar Weekly" (which you get automatically subscribed to if you have ever covered a game at WSU) led with the news of the VB team making the NCAA tournament. And did not include even 1 word about football (even though they are still going bowling).
Apparently either nothing newsworthy happened with football (or there was no one in Pullman Saturday night; ticket/credential distribution, never mind actual attendance, was ~50% of capacity, to report on it).
[ACC] GA Tech loses a heart breaker to #7 Georgia in 8OT 44-42, LSJU's Daniels was terrible in their 34-31 loss to SJSU, Syracuse knocks #6 Miami out of the ACC championship via a 42-38 win, Clemson shits the bed 17-14 to South Carolina and still makes it to the conference championship, Lville smokes Kentucky 41-14, Duke beats Wake 23-17, BC beats Pitt 34-23, NC State beats UNC 35-30 (suck it, Mack Brown), and Florida ends FSU's miserable season 31-11, VA Tech beats UVA 37-17 to become bowl eligible.
Got back in time to watch the last 2 minutes and all the OTs in Athens. Was REALLY hoping GT would pull that one out. That's the kind of loss that will dog the Yellow Jackets like a swarm of yellow jackets for years to come.
Cal basketball debuts at #78 in the NET, which is fringe tournament territory. That road loss to Vanderbilt is looking reasonably respectable right now.
As a consequence of Saturday's loss the Bears still only have four winning regular seasons ('11, '15, '18 and '19) in the last fifteen years (all 7-5) and none in five years. This includes no winning seasons in conference play.
Cal winning six games despite having a historically bad offensive line (fourth worst sacks allowed in FBS, Jaydn Ott lowest YPC in FBS for qualified RBs, bottom quintile FBS rushing YPG) is something. And having a PK problems cost us games.
Mendoza had the best QB season since perhaps Jared Goff thanks to his development and a much better receiver corp. Defense was pretty darn good except our inability to stop folks on fourth down. Top tercile defense that would have been better if we hadn't so many three-and-outs from a lack of a running game.
We shall see how we emerge from the chaos of the portal period, but if we stay relatively intact - except improve to merely okay at O-line - we can have a really good year in 2025.
In other words we did fairly well for a team that sucked. If only we could figure out who's responsible for our team having such weaknesses....like if there was a head man of some sort. And yes we can have a really good year in 2025 and I hope we do but after eight seasons of Wilcox, whose best seasons were his second and third, I see little reason for optimism. His record speaks for itself.
Husband
Haha ..at first I thought this was under the XMAS shopping thread
Slightly obscure song, last verse:
My husband’s a husband, a husband, a husband,
My husband’s a husband is he.
All day he drinks tea, he drinks tea, he drinks tea,
And at night he comes home and drinks coffee.
XMAS SHOPPING
Things I bought for the fam over the weekend were mostly stocking stuffers: a bunch of snacks at Trader Joe's, airtags, airpod covers, teeth whitening strips, novelty facial masks, luggage tags, lip balm, Pilot G2 pens
Worked some of it in over Thanksgiving weekend.
things i bought in the last 48 hrs
- Fogo lump charcoal
- Nikkor 50mm lens for my mirrorless camera
- senior class photos for child using some Black Fri coupon code
almost bought a new Macbook pro but the delivery would have been while we were away for Xmas.
for those photography obsessed, this is the lens.
i am told that the Z mount lenses are particularly sharp and good for mirrorless cameras.
trying to decide what to do w/ all the non-Z lenses and older Nikon camera bodies. the film camera still needs the older mounts.
https://www.nikonusa.com/p/nikkor-z-mc-50mm-f28/20103
HOW WAS THAT FOUR-DAY WEEKEND?
Pretty good for me until I got to work this morning.
One of our youngest staff members was killed in a car accident early Friday morning, going home. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from his vehicle. He was 20 or 21 years old.
It's fair to say that folks in his unit are gutted.
How terrible- condolences to you and your colleagues.
Thanks.
Okay except I had to wage war with a cold.
Always a bad deal, but especially annoying to be dealing with an illness/injury on a holiday or other special/significant event. Hope you feel better soon, so it doesn't slop over to Christmas activities.
Kinda crappy. Thanksgiving was canceled due to me being sick. Doctor visit & urgent care due to continued pneumonia - which I don't want to take lightly because I'm going to be out of the country and at elevation for two weeks starting on Friday. Oh, which reminds me - I'll have my computer with me and will be able to publish, but probably not seed comments. And then the Bear's traditional throw-away game wasn't fun to watch. But apart from that, just peachy.
Uneventful? I was online for work on Friday mostly "just in case" as we're between test cycles. My father in law and his wife stayed with us, and they've had some real health & cognition declines over the last year, so it was both a little sad and a little challenging. We also had my sister in law and her family join on Thanksgiving day and a little bit on Friday, which was challenging only insofar as she makes no effort to let anyone know what she's doing - this used to be an irritant when we ended up stuck in the house, but now that my father in law has mobility problems, we weren't going anywhere so oh well.
Still continuing at my sister’s house. My nephews and their significant others and in-laws are gone so it’s just me left. I fly home tomorrow. Just wanted to avoid any crowding at the airport and get a bit cheaper fare.
Sun afternoon from MCO > JFK was fine, very crowded.
we had about a 45 min delay taking off, just sitting on the runway and another 30 min delayed circling JFK because of congestion.
overall it was fine, just a bit longer than expected with little hassles along the way.
4 days w/ 35 relatives (all in-laws) in Orlando in a giant house. everything went pretty smoothly.
i was in charge of drinks, ie alcohol and coffee. i drank plenty of both and made multiple trips a day when booze was running low.
Orlando was unseasonably cool. played a little tennis. it was not hot at all.
Real busy. Lots of turkey, some football, had to work some as well. Saw most of the parade and some Christmas shows, and a lot of extended family.
Thanksgiving was late in the calendar, so Christmas activities are already well underway. I could use 4 day weekends every weekend from Veterans' Day thru the weekend following New Years Day.
REALPOLITIK
PRO
Chicago Bears fired Eberflilus and they said "this will be the most coveted job in the NFL this year."
https://www.instagram.com/p/DDFgIU-PDkq/?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA==
Cal Bears HC job be just as attractive.
spent a jolly time watching Everton go from "dogged nullification" to "absolute collapse" against Manchester United yesterday, they're going to have the nicest new stadium in the Championship at this rate.
Took a page from the Michigan-Ohio St game playbook and had a brawl.
1 of 3 games where the visiting team won and tried to plant the flag leading to a fight. UNC/NC State was one. Forgot the 3rd
That was a deeply silly game - I watched it with my father in law who needed an anxiety sherpa and neither of us could quite believe that Michigan won, but a good result nevertheless.
Missed 95% of it putting up outside Xmas lights & decorations, but every time I stepped in to get more lights or some hot coffee, I looked at the score and thought, wow, Ohio St still not as good as advertised. It was glorious.
SNOW .. seemingly white-out conditions in Buffalo as they beat up on visiting 49ers.
nice to see that it is snowing somewhere in the country.
I didn’t see it on the forecast, but there’s a very light covering on the streets this morning in NE Iowa. Already up to 20 degrees so I should be able to get out and get some exercise later.
DBD AV CLUB
Wild Robot (theater, 11/19, WNB). Well animated and beautiful, but it's a bad screenplay adaptation by Christopher Sanders. The story doesn't have a well-defined conflict, so you don't know what the characters are working towards necessarily, which means there is a lot of activity on the screen - but it's all action, not a story. And the outcome is never in doubt, so it's not very satisfying. Not horrible, but wife and I wish we had skipped it.
that's too bad. i was looking forward to watching and probably still will do so. have read all 3 books and it is sort of a family favorite.
There's nothing wrong with a feel good and fun "story". Real-life doesn't always fit the old book & movie format either.
ELSWHERE IN INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS
Mateen Bhaghani has done much better than Ryan Coe or Derek Morris.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/player/_/id/5161141/mateen-bhaghani
This one hurts the most. Long of 57
Kaylin Moore thought he could do better at UCLA. He actually has.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/player/stats/_/id/4686995/kaylin-moore
Femi Oladejo thought he could do much better at UCLA. He has not.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/player/stats/_/id/5098536/oluwafemi-oladejo
J Michael Sturdivant thought he could do better at UCLA. He has not.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/player/stats/_/id/4635009/jmichael-sturdivant
Jeremiah Hunter portaled to UW. He did not play as well over there.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/player/stats/_/id/4429963/jeremiah-hunter
Marquez Dortch has finished up his third year of playing WR via MS State/Cal/Troy. He has three catches, negative one yard receiving, and one TD.
Indiana scored 66 points. Purdue gained 67 offensive yards before penalties.
A great quote from Reddit: If other teams spotted Purdue 34 points before each game this season, Purdue still would have been 6-6.
[Former PAC] #1 Oregon beats UW 49-21, USC loses to #5 Notre Dame 49-35, UCLA beats Fresno State 20-13 but is not bowl eligible, #25 Colorado beat Oklahoma State Gundy's 52-0, Utah beat UCF 28-14, #16 ASU beats Arizona to punch their ticket to the Big 12 championship, Oregon State loses to #11 Boise State 34-18 as Jeanty rushes for 226, and Wazzu craps the bed by losing to lowly Wyoming 15-14 by giving up a 4th and 14 TD with 24 seconds left.
In a new high in Couging It, WSU, after starting 8-1 and in the CFP playoff chase/conversation. blows a 4th quarter lead, for the 3rd week in a row (2 of the losses in the closing seconds), all to teams that had and still have losing records.
In a definitely related development, HC Jake Dickert has fired DC Jeff Schmedding.
In a possibly related event, "Cougar Weekly" (which you get automatically subscribed to if you have ever covered a game at WSU) led with the news of the VB team making the NCAA tournament. And did not include even 1 word about football (even though they are still going bowling).
Apparently either nothing newsworthy happened with football (or there was no one in Pullman Saturday night; ticket/credential distribution, never mind actual attendance, was ~50% of capacity, to report on it).
[ACC] GA Tech loses a heart breaker to #7 Georgia in 8OT 44-42, LSJU's Daniels was terrible in their 34-31 loss to SJSU, Syracuse knocks #6 Miami out of the ACC championship via a 42-38 win, Clemson shits the bed 17-14 to South Carolina and still makes it to the conference championship, Lville smokes Kentucky 41-14, Duke beats Wake 23-17, BC beats Pitt 34-23, NC State beats UNC 35-30 (suck it, Mack Brown), and Florida ends FSU's miserable season 31-11, VA Tech beats UVA 37-17 to become bowl eligible.
Got back in time to watch the last 2 minutes and all the OTs in Athens. Was REALLY hoping GT would pull that one out. That's the kind of loss that will dog the Yellow Jackets like a swarm of yellow jackets for years to come.
We thought they should've gone for 2 at the end of the first OT
Final ACC standings: SMU/Clemson TBD, #3 Miami, #4 Syracuse/L'Ville/GA Tech/Duke, #9 VA Tech/BC, #11 Pitt/NCState/UNC/UVA, #14 Cal/Wake/Stanford, #17 FSU.
Pitt really plummeted. The ACC better hope SMU wins; the optics of Clemson in the playoffs have a chance to be really bad. As in REALLY bad.
CAL
Cal basketball debuts at #78 in the NET, which is fringe tournament territory. That road loss to Vanderbilt is looking reasonably respectable right now.
Conversely, the USC win is looking less so after they got housed by St. Mary’s.
That's men's basketball. The California women are #25. Not sure the last time they were that high but it's been a while.
Go Bears!!!
As a consequence of Saturday's loss the Bears still only have four winning regular seasons ('11, '15, '18 and '19) in the last fifteen years (all 7-5) and none in five years. This includes no winning seasons in conference play.
Cal winning six games despite having a historically bad offensive line (fourth worst sacks allowed in FBS, Jaydn Ott lowest YPC in FBS for qualified RBs, bottom quintile FBS rushing YPG) is something. And having a PK problems cost us games.
Mendoza had the best QB season since perhaps Jared Goff thanks to his development and a much better receiver corp. Defense was pretty darn good except our inability to stop folks on fourth down. Top tercile defense that would have been better if we hadn't so many three-and-outs from a lack of a running game.
We shall see how we emerge from the chaos of the portal period, but if we stay relatively intact - except improve to merely okay at O-line - we can have a really good year in 2025.
I imagine we have 3, maybe 4 more wins with a kicker. Let's say 3 of the 4 where we had missed kicks late.
except improve to merely okay at O-line -- a pretty BIG exception!
In other words we did fairly well for a team that sucked. If only we could figure out who's responsible for our team having such weaknesses....like if there was a head man of some sort. And yes we can have a really good year in 2025 and I hope we do but after eight seasons of Wilcox, whose best seasons were his second and third, I see little reason for optimism. His record speaks for itself.