My facility will be shutting down our research operations for 3 months while we do some maintenance and upgrades. During our all-hands meeting, while someone was going through what those maintenance and upgrade projects would be, my director posted in the chat that, when the shutdown ends, we should break out the "Champaign" to celebrate.
Since everyone started making fun of the director after that, I'm not sure how many people actually know what the maintenance and upgrade projects will entail.
Unfortunately the Vanquish isn't a 6 speed. @otherwise I'd be all in@. Someone traded it for an STI? They also have a G-Class for sale. It says call for pricing so must be more than the Vanquish. Looks like about 25% of their used cars are Mercedes, 25% are Toyotas, and 25% are Subarus. No used STIs.
interior like a tart's boudoir, as my granny would have said. Ambitious pricing (I just found one in Summit NJ with just under half the mileage for an extra $3k. The fact that I can only swing the price difference is neither here not there)
That reminds me, recently finished a great book The Dreamt Land:
“The Dreamt Land” is Arax’s exhaustive, deeply reported account of this problematic achievement. Though focused mainly on the present state of affairs in California’s Great Central Valley, the book ranges widely over the course of its 500-plus pages, managing to encompass a capsule history of California before the American conquest, a description of the state’s first attempts at hydraulic engineering during the gold rush (“A miner couldn’t prospect without water,” Arax points out) and an impassioned jeremiad on the intentional decimation of the region’s native populations in the mid-19th century. More to his main theme, Arax also profiles the principal players in what he calls California’s “second rush,” the rise of agriculture that followed in the decades after the gold petered out.
I watched the video. It was pretty cool the way the starship rotates on its belly when dropping down from altitude and then they rotate the bottom around and reignite the engines to try to slowdown descent and land. They almost had it but I think one or two engines didn't reignite or flamed out right before landing.
I read that Rudy was released from the hospital yesterday. I walked by Trump campaign HQ in the early evening and three black SUVs were idling out front. I was wearing a mask but may have dodged a bullet since no people were outside.
At my first Texas-Texas A&M game back in '94 probably, I got to experience their band for the first time. As a 'foreigner", i.e. from California, I had never seen them before and was flabbergasted, then delighted by the spectacle in front of me. I asked my friends what these shenanigans were and was told it was A&Ms military marching band. I guess the natives were used to this but I asked why they were dressed like the Hitler youth and were marching around in straight lines. No one had an answer so I naturally stood up in the middle of the student section (directly behind the A&M bench) and gave them the Nazi salute. Within minutes, the entire student section had joined me. Because their band and their Corps of posers, I mean Cadets, are a bunch of fascist assholes. One of my 2 "moments" as a student at UT football games
South Carolina owes Will Muschamp $2.1m more because they forgot to sign his renegotiated contract. Or as I like to call it, pulling a "Mike Williams".
Does no one in colleges and universities look at contracts? I can't get crap done without an agreement signed by everyone, including the finance department. And I certainly can't pay anyone without it.
Yep, CFB is becoming real difficult to watch. Between the hypocrisy of the NCAA, lack of rules, and the rising inequality of CFB (which is basically mirroring society) between the have and have nots I don’t, playing during a pandemic, and not paying players; I don’t know how much longer I can watch and support it. I am started fo prefer the NFL.
They should be expelled. I just don’t even know how Biden or any Democrat can govern with today’s GOP. I don’t even know how you “fix” or “save” the current GOP.
And if demographic shifts to continue to happen and the democrats/progressive can actually string together 3 or 4 presidential victories in a row and the GOP sees it can’t win a presidential election then what happens?
I have no idea how shady Biden Jr is. But the fact that the current DOJ is investigating after all the BS put out there during the election makes me think this is just more BS grandstanding by the Trumpistas
I'm really doubtful they'll find anything, especially since Republicans have had ample reason to investigate anything and everything about the Bidens for many years.
I hate to say Rush is right but I think we are heading for a separation. We are in a Cold Civil War and the center cannot hold, especially when one party is sliding to authoritarian and obstructionist rule.
I am more and more OK with this. We'll have a blue prosperous and progressive nation, and a red small-minded, rural ghetto (can you have a rural ghetto?). Have fun guys!
Minor league realignment/consolidation. SF Giants lose Salem-Kaiser Volcanos (Class A short) & Augusta Greenjackets (Class A). SJ Giants get demoted to low-A from high-A. Gain Chicago Cub's (Class-A short) Eugene Emeralds, which gets promoted to high-A.
I always enjoy watching the Dallas Cowboys lose but they are so bad and inept that I am starting to lose some joy in their losses as they are basically expected to always lose now.
Also, Mike McCarthy looks like Mike Pompeo and is equally as bad at his job as Pompeo is.
It's crazy to think that they haven't really threatened for a championship in 25 years. They've had the occasional high seed, but haven't made it past the divisional round since 1995.
Washington at Oregon game Saturday cancelled because the Huskies can't field a team. To fill the hole in the Fox over the air schedule, the Cal at WSU game has been moved from 7:30 to 1 PM, and will be on Fox (instead of FS1).
Glad the game got shifted to 1:00 so Cal can enjoy the high temperature of 32 degrees, rather than the low of 29 Cal would've gotten at night. Those three extra degrees gonna swing this game our way.
You can always count on Cal fans like NicK to find the silver lining to any situation.
Nope. I watched until we were down by 10 points and gave up in frustration. Just have to accept that we are going to be a sub-.500 team this season, perhaps drastically so. Calling Mike Mongomery...calling Mike Montgomery. Heck, even Ben Braun.
Go Bears! I went for a walk around Roosevelt Island around sunset last night and a guy flew by running and wearing a Cal basketball t-shirt. I gave him a Go Bears and got a fist pump as he went by.
I can't say that I'm very enthusiastic about this company "all hands meeting," which started at 6pm Eastern.
Hopefully it isn't the fire everyone and burn the place down meeting!
Hopefully it's a end of the year, happy holidays meeting.
As long as they don't end the meeting by giving you boxes on the way out.
That sucks
zzzzzzzzzz
My facility will be shutting down our research operations for 3 months while we do some maintenance and upgrades. During our all-hands meeting, while someone was going through what those maintenance and upgrade projects would be, my director posted in the chat that, when the shutdown ends, we should break out the "Champaign" to celebrate.
Since everyone started making fun of the director after that, I'm not sure how many people actually know what the maintenance and upgrade projects will entail.
maybe you're all relocating to UIUC.
I did say, "What about Urbana?" Someone else on the call chimed in with, "Go Illini!"
If anyone has an extra $90K lying around, I just saw Subaru of Oakland has a 2014 Aston Martin on their lot for sale
https://www.subaruofoakland.com/used/Aston%20Martin/2014-Aston+Martin-Vanquish-Oakland-88abf1e10a0e0a6b1bace8b82cd501b9.htm
Unfortunately the Vanquish isn't a 6 speed. @otherwise I'd be all in@. Someone traded it for an STI? They also have a G-Class for sale. It says call for pricing so must be more than the Vanquish. Looks like about 25% of their used cars are Mercedes, 25% are Toyotas, and 25% are Subarus. No used STIs.
Not a convertible so GTFO.
Nah, I'm happy with what I already have.
interior like a tart's boudoir, as my granny would have said. Ambitious pricing (I just found one in Summit NJ with just under half the mileage for an extra $3k. The fact that I can only swing the price difference is neither here not there)
Heh, "interior like a tart's boudoir"
if you're going to go red, go all in: https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/chrysler/300l/2331713.html
Podium
Defenestration
I like this Twitter account.
https://twitter.com/yeetgarf
our windows at work don't open. :(
California water is now a publicly-listed future.
https://financialpost.com/investing/water-joins-gold-and-oil-for-first-time-as-traded-commodity-on-wall-street-amid-fears-of-scarcity
That reminds me, recently finished a great book The Dreamt Land:
“The Dreamt Land” is Arax’s exhaustive, deeply reported account of this problematic achievement. Though focused mainly on the present state of affairs in California’s Great Central Valley, the book ranges widely over the course of its 500-plus pages, managing to encompass a capsule history of California before the American conquest, a description of the state’s first attempts at hydraulic engineering during the gold rush (“A miner couldn’t prospect without water,” Arax points out) and an impassioned jeremiad on the intentional decimation of the region’s native populations in the mid-19th century. More to his main theme, Arax also profiles the principal players in what he calls California’s “second rush,” the rise of agriculture that followed in the decades after the gold petered out.
I really thought this book was quite impressive.
SpaceX celebrates the successful high-altitude flight of their super-heavy reusable rocket
https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/index.html
The low-level landing was less successful
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1336907244366073856
I watched the video. It was pretty cool the way the starship rotates on its belly when dropping down from altitude and then they rotate the bottom around and reignite the engines to try to slowdown descent and land. They almost had it but I think one or two engines didn't reignite or flamed out right before landing.
Today in Covid
I read that Rudy was released from the hospital yesterday. I walked by Trump campaign HQ in the early evening and three black SUVs were idling out front. I was wearing a mask but may have dodged a bullet since no people were outside.
that bastard got preferential treatment surprise surprise
https://twitter.com/michelleinbklyn/status/1337031146664824832
The real surprise is that the Post reported that he acknowledged he got preferential treatment because of his celebrity.
Elsewhere in college
ICYMI: Texas A&M's band, ladies and germs.
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1332858849594920967
At my first Texas-Texas A&M game back in '94 probably, I got to experience their band for the first time. As a 'foreigner", i.e. from California, I had never seen them before and was flabbergasted, then delighted by the spectacle in front of me. I asked my friends what these shenanigans were and was told it was A&Ms military marching band. I guess the natives were used to this but I asked why they were dressed like the Hitler youth and were marching around in straight lines. No one had an answer so I naturally stood up in the middle of the student section (directly behind the A&M bench) and gave them the Nazi salute. Within minutes, the entire student section had joined me. Because their band and their Corps of posers, I mean Cadets, are a bunch of fascist assholes. One of my 2 "moments" as a student at UT football games
South Carolina owes Will Muschamp $2.1m more because they forgot to sign his renegotiated contract. Or as I like to call it, pulling a "Mike Williams".
https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/usc-football/article247716205.html
Does no one in colleges and universities look at contracts? I can't get crap done without an agreement signed by everyone, including the finance department. And I certainly can't pay anyone without it.
LSU heroically imposes a self-ban on a bowl game this year.
https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1336823686691758082?s=19
Good time to self-impose when your record is 3-5. hopefully the NCAA will still ban them next year.
I initially thought "good try" but it isn't really.
College football, where the points are made up and the rules don't matter hahaha
Yep, CFB is becoming real difficult to watch. Between the hypocrisy of the NCAA, lack of rules, and the rising inequality of CFB (which is basically mirroring society) between the have and have nots I don’t, playing during a pandemic, and not paying players; I don’t know how much longer I can watch and support it. I am started fo prefer the NFL.
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
Congressional Republicans endorse illegal overturning of elections
https://twitter.com/johnkruzel/status/1337135543373733889?s=20
Every single one them should be expelled from Congress for failing to uphold their sworn oaths.
Every one of them
They should be expelled. I just don’t even know how Biden or any Democrat can govern with today’s GOP. I don’t even know how you “fix” or “save” the current GOP.
And if demographic shifts to continue to happen and the democrats/progressive can actually string together 3 or 4 presidential victories in a row and the GOP sees it can’t win a presidential election then what happens?
TSA tails thousands of US Citizens who fly with air marshals per year in an attempt to prevent terrorism. The program has found zero terrorists.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201205/18514245827/tsa-oversight-says-agencys-suspicionless-surveillance-program-is-worthless-tsa-cant-prove-it-isnt.shtml
Seems like they would have similar or maybe better results by just doing a review of everyone on randomly selected flights.
Air marshals just makes me think of Bridesmaids.
My wife burst out laughing when I read your comment out loud. I guess I should watch that movie once. Rom com?
Hmm not really. I'd say it's more of an ensemble comedy.
I was hoping you were going to say action / thriller.
Bridesmaids... I might need to have a drink while watching.
DOJ investigating Hunter Biden financial dealings
https://apnews.com/article/hunter-biden-federal-tax-investigation-87c200c919aa61396b5d43077bc5b0ff
I have no idea how shady Biden Jr is. But the fact that the current DOJ is investigating after all the BS put out there during the election makes me think this is just more BS grandstanding by the Trumpistas
I'm really doubtful they'll find anything, especially since Republicans have had ample reason to investigate anything and everything about the Bidens for many years.
But first they had to investigate Obama’s citizenship, Hillary’s emails, and Benghazi so they didn’t have time to look at Biden.
They have spent so much money investigating everyone from Clinton onward, and have come up with as close to nothing as a 25 year witch hunt can.
Yes but why stop now!!
I hate to say Rush is right but I think we are heading for a separation. We are in a Cold Civil War and the center cannot hold, especially when one party is sliding to authoritarian and obstructionist rule.
I am more and more OK with this. We'll have a blue prosperous and progressive nation, and a red small-minded, rural ghetto (can you have a rural ghetto?). Have fun guys!
Urban areas have ghettos.
Rural areas have trailer parks.
All I can say to the red states is:
Good luck with that.
Agreed. But they will finally get their white, Christian nation they so badly want. It will just be a shit hole country with a small economy.
"How can a Country be run like this?"
- Donald J. Trump, 12/9/2020
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1336730906107768842
Could you imagine being the one person Twitter hired to verify each of Trump's tweets? It's almost an automatic rubber stamp for false statements.
Easy job and money.
PRO
Minor league realignment/consolidation. SF Giants lose Salem-Kaiser Volcanos (Class A short) & Augusta Greenjackets (Class A). SJ Giants get demoted to low-A from high-A. Gain Chicago Cub's (Class-A short) Eugene Emeralds, which gets promoted to high-A.
https://twitter.com/SKVolcanoes/status/1336750562650386433
I always enjoy watching the Dallas Cowboys lose but they are so bad and inept that I am starting to lose some joy in their losses as they are basically expected to always lose now.
Also, Mike McCarthy looks like Mike Pompeo and is equally as bad at his job as Pompeo is.
It's crazy to think that they haven't really threatened for a championship in 25 years. They've had the occasional high seed, but haven't made it past the divisional round since 1995.
Thanks Romo.
That brings me so much joy.
But still only 2 games out of first place.
I don’t see them winning two more games this season so it may as well be 7.
CAL
Washington at Oregon game Saturday cancelled because the Huskies can't field a team. To fill the hole in the Fox over the air schedule, the Cal at WSU game has been moved from 7:30 to 1 PM, and will be on Fox (instead of FS1).
Nicolas Kranz
@NorCalNickW4C
· 5m
Glad the game got shifted to 1:00 so Cal can enjoy the high temperature of 32 degrees, rather than the low of 29 Cal would've gotten at night. Those three extra degrees gonna swing this game our way.
You can always count on Cal fans like NicK to find the silver lining to any situation.
From the Front Page: WR Trevon Clark no longer with the team due to personal reasons
https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/cal-football-wr-trevon-clark-has
the what now?
Cal loses to Pepperdine 74-62 https://twitter.com/CalMBBall/status/1336882957022203906
I retract my statement last week that I'm not accustomed to having a competitive basketball team. We clearly are not a competitive basketball team.
I didn't know there was a game last night until i logged onto twitter and my TL was full of doom and gloom.
I was working out - watched 4 minutes - we may be worse than last year, and that's saying something.
Nope. I watched until we were down by 10 points and gave up in frustration. Just have to accept that we are going to be a sub-.500 team this season, perhaps drastically so. Calling Mike Mongomery...calling Mike Montgomery. Heck, even Ben Braun.
the roster is brutal. Question is, can Fox recruit well enough to make the roster not brutal. He's a pretty good Xs and Ox guy
narrator voice: he can't
I watched the first half of the BB game last night. After that it was off to bed to read. Too tough to watch.
Go Bears! I went for a walk around Roosevelt Island around sunset last night and a guy flew by running and wearing a Cal basketball t-shirt. I gave him a Go Bears and got a fist pump as he went by.
I learned yesterday that the owner of my local liquor store is an Old Blue. We had a spirited conversation about Cal football.
And what were your conclusions? Rose Bowl bound? Or, does our future hold something else?
my local corner store is awesome. great selections on beer and whiskey.
[kicks rocks in blue law county]