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Yosemite

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My sister and her family came up on Sat and we're going to Yosemite tomorrow until Friday. She got 1 night in a tent at Curry Village and then 2 nights at the Lower Pines campground. No 1 is already there with a couple of his friends, one of which is working in the park for University of Wisconsin driving around looking for owls. She wants to leave at 4:30 and I said I'll leave later in the morning. Not getting up that early to drive to Yosemite.

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it shouldnt be too band mid-week right? or is it just bad all the time these days ..

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I don't know. I just know I'm not waking up to leave at 430. I guess we'll see how crowded it is with the state just opening back up.

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The traffic to Yosemite really isn't that bad. Worst part is getting out to 120, and then it generally just flows at the limit or slightly above. Why does she want to get there at 8AM? Does she want to do Nevada Falls or something on day one?

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I don't know why my sister wants to leave that early. I think she had heard the entrance has up to a 1 hour wait. Though I don't know if that's still true when you can only get in if you have a reservation.

I'm shooting for around 8 or 830 and then probably going to Wawona to pick up No 1

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you'll probably end up passing her at high speeds if you are taking the Miata!

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Well... passing anyway 😜

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heh...yup. Miata is a slow car. Though I'll probably take the Acura since I'l have some camping stuff.

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New American Pathways - EDSBS update

https://vimeo.com/565629812

New American Pathways started the EDSBS Empowerment Fund with the donations!

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your health ...

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a friend of ours (50) was just diagnosed w/ stage 4 colon cancer and basically has a short amount of time left to live.

my wife and i, are trying to tell people to get screened to for since it is one of the cancers that is more or less preventable/treatable if detected early.

there is the standard colonoscopy route which people avoid because of the unpleasantness.

but there is a also a "poop in box" screening test that my wife used to work on that you should be able to get your doctor to prescribe if you are 45+.

https://www.cologuard.com/

there are plenty of cancers that there is no test or screening, but this one there is ...

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I take that test every year... so far, so good.

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"In a clinical study, 13% of people without cancer received a positive result (false positive) and 8% of people with cancer received a negative result (false negative)".

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my wife claims that the false negatives are better than published. and if it helps any, we both took the test ..

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So sorry to hear about your friend.

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indeed. sort of a kindred spirit, cool dad (like me) who spends a ton of time outdoors both on his own and with his kids. always planning the next ski trip to some snowy powdery destination even if it is a couple seasons away

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One of my best friends through middle school and high school died of colon cancer last year. He was 48. Now that I'm 50, I've had my finger ready to dial the doctor to get the colonoscopy, but haven't because frankly... I'm scared.

This is certainly an interesting option. Thank you for highlighting it.

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I've had the finger up the butt test almost every year since I was 40. History of family cancer and such.

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Weekend fun events

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went to spin class. Saw two movies. went to my golf lesson.

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I hung out in a friend's pool in the DubSee on Saturday, didn't do much of anything other than a walk at Crissy Field yesterday.

On Saturday, I made a very tasty salad for lunch of spinach, arugula, white peaches, burrata and prosciutto, with the NYT mustard vinaigrette that is my gold standard for dressing. We all wished for seconds that were already in our bellies.

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Cheesecake Factory!

I'd gotten two $100 gift cards to the Cheesecake Factory during their promotion (they gave an extra $30 gift card for each $100 card you got), and I went with my friends on Saturday. My friends drank so much that our tab ended up being $325, so I bought another gift card on the spot.

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BTW, the Miata that your friend in your other internet community is working on is looking really nice. I can't believe all the work they've done on it. It's going to be a great car for her.

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I saw some pictures she posted on Fbook--such a transformation!

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Twist is so jealous right now.

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Middle-aged tubing. That is, float in an inner-tube while listening to tunes and eating snacks, then top it off with a nap onboard in the shade. Lake was not busy. I guess people don't go to lakes on Father's Day. However, 4th of July is always packed.

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A group of us tried to go to the Oakland Roots futbol match on saturday. After we had our tickets scanned, Nick and Twist went to grab seats while the lady friend went ot the merch table and Mrs Nick and I stood in line for beer. Just as We go to the front of the beer line, Nick texts "Game's cancelled," followed by a "wtf" text from Twist. Turns out the Sac Republic team complained about the condition of the field which prompted the officials take a closer look and subsequently cancel the match. As we gathered to try to piece wtf was going on, (people were still milling about in concession lines etc) a staff member approached us and told to be sure to grab a free beverage on the way out. I asked if that included beer and she said yes. So i jumped back in line and asked for 2 beers. The guy gave me 3. Then I jumped into another beer line and asked for 2 more. Walked out with no game being watched and a sixer in my bag.

We walked over to the lake to check out the Juneteenth festivities, then decided to head downtown for dinner. We ended up running into Burl Toler who was next door to where we were at a private event. We tried goading Avi to go next door to harass Burl but he wasn't into it.

Avi pulled out his phone and we watched KD airball that shot to send Milwaukee to the ECF

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How much did you blame Nick and Mrs Nick

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I saw on sfgate that there was a shooting by the lake Saturday night. Hopefully not near where you were.

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Mrs Slug and I saw a notification about that incident from citizen app. Gave us a moment of concern because our oldest and his gf live about 2 blocks from the location of the shooting. Mrs Slug texted CJay and soon got a reply.

They were in Monterey on Saturday.

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we were already on the other side of the lake at that point. And as it is the middle of "Gunshots or Fireworks" season, I've mostly tuned out all loud bang sounds.

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On Sat I went on a drive with the Bay Area Miata Association. I joined them a few months ago and this was the first drive I went on. We met at the Starbucks in Morgan Hill, then drove on 152 through Hecker Pass, along 1 to Carmel, stopping at Safeway/Starbucks to grab lunch for later. Then we drove to Bixby Bridge, the famous bridge just south of Carmel. There were lots of people in the parking lot so we drove past and about a mile later found a turnoff and parked all 8 or so cars there (I think 2 first gen, 1 2nd gen, 1 3rd gen, and 4 or 5 current gen). We hung out there for about 30 min talking and taking pictures (there are some on the Bay Area Miata Association Insta page). Then we drove back up north just past the bridge and stopped and had lunch on a beach. That was the end of the drive. I drove up to UCSC to checkout campus since I've never been there and checked out the view from Cowell College. I was tempted to keep going up 1 to either 84 of 92 and go home but I ended up just taking 17 back.

There was one driver that lived in Concord that went to Cal. Her blue NA Miata plate was "AU OSOS". I told her I was jealous. She said that someone on BI told her they had "AU OSO". She said her truck somehow has Beat Stanford. Can't remember exactly how she had the letters.

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Fathers Day excursion ..

we "go to church" once a year for the Monroe Congregational Church Strawberry Festival in Monroe CT. there is a crafts fair and homemade strawberry shortcake at the time of year that the local strawberries are at their peak.

if we were to use the definition of a Michelin *** restaurant, "exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey," this would qualify since we drove 1.5 hours each way just for the shortcake.

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Powerpoint

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Endless investor decks and pitchbooks

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the real problem is not even PPT itself, it is the design thinking (or lack thereof) that goes into making a good presentation. there is the tendency to "put all the usefel information" into a single overcrowded slide.

if you think back to the days of transparencies and overhead projectors, it was about the same. there were some good and some bad, but the medium itself was not the problem ...

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At my old job people used to half-jokingly say the best deck for this brand would be one with zero words on it - just photos.

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in a lightning interview once i told someone i was 0 in PP skills on the scale of 1-10.

i am actually not that bad, but i basically produce mediocre ones so no one will ever ask me to make one.

in grad school i learned never to get publicly good at something you hate doing, otherwise you might end up doing that the rest of your life ...

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I love making PowerPoints

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My preference is for Keynote - but alas it's Apple only and our clients are all PC users, so we mainly write in Keynote and then export to PPT.

In China, everyone just calls it "PPT" instead of powerpoint.

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author

Peepee tea?

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yeah. the one which i find more annoying is that phone apps are called "A Pee Pee" which is more work than "App"

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In Columbus, there was a restaurant called Pho (housed in a building that used to be a Taco Bell), and my lab couldn't decide on how to pronounce it, so they just always spelled it out--pea aitch oh

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There was a sales person at my old company whose name was Jo Ng - none of the mandarin speakers knew how to say it accurately or well, so she became Jo N. G.

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Maybe they thought the food was overly acidic.

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Computer Science

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sadly the only official CS course i ever took was a 1 unit self-paced, pass/fail C programming course at Cal.

i think HeyAlumniGo took it a couple times just to have an email address. i already had one from working at the Space Sciences Lab (top of the hill above Lawrence Hall of Sciene)

i was pretty sure i was going to fail too since i didnt complete the final project. but i walked into the final just to get a preview for next time. somehow i passed the test and the class in ways that are still not clear to me.

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now that i am writing code all day, i certainly wish i had a little more formal training the algorithms and data structures.

i have started a few Coursera courses, but never truly finished them

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DBD Workout Room

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not sure if this counts, but i upgraded all the lights in the workout room to LED shop lights instead of the fluorescent tube lights we used to have. they were in various states of falling apart and not working

i think it will save energy and heat for more lumens ...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L44Y479

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Is the workout room anything like the Champagne Room?

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DBD Test Kitchen

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grilled some fish (sea trout) on cedar planks yesterday.

the fish itself was tasty and well cooked. not sure how much flavor the planks imparted, but at least the fish was moist and juicy from not being directly on the grill.

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Marinating some butter chicken for tonight's dinner

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DBD AV Club

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Saw Luca on Disney+ - maybe the most Studio Ghibli of any Pixar movie. AO Scott called it "Calamari By Your Name" and he wasn't wrong - but I think it falls short of the high end Pixar stuff (Wall-E, Toy Story 3, Coco) but above their more recent stuff (Onward and Soul)

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Is Luca and Onward both Pixar or were they done by Disney Animation studios? I know Soul was Pixar.

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Disney Animation most recently did Raya and the Last Dragon.

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All are Pixar.

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Thanks, I didn’t realize both Luca and Onward were Pixar. I finally watched Soul and I liked it.

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Saw Cruella on Saturday. Very well made - maybe the needle drops were a little too on the nose. But Emmas Thompson and Stone are having a ball - just really having a lot of fun. The side characters are all a lot of fun too . . . .but why? I mean aside from the money. It's like making a movie about Darth Vader as a sympathetic little kid or something.

The Stone/Thompson rivalry was a lot of fun on screen though.

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The movie about dueling fashion designers was great. The movie that had to create convoluted backstory for a cartoon villain was less good. Both are on screen at the same time.

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This is exactly right.

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I have known some women who thoroughly relate to Cruella. They stated this so loudly it was unsettling.

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Our Crumbling Democracy

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‘Tip of the spear’: Texas governor leads revolt against Biden

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/21/texas-abbott-immigration-biden-resistance-495172

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Celine Dion has taken over all Quebecois government buildings

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/only-quebec-music-to-be-played-in-government-buildings-minister-announces-1.5478242

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It's so hard to resist, but it's all coming back to me now

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Russia has unleashed Kardashian bots on us. Also, ATQ may be a Russian asset.

https://www.voanews.com/usa/foreign-disinformation-feeds-us-domestic-terrorism-official-warns

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Addicted To Quack may indeed be a Russian asset, but I didn't see that in the article.

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Have you actually looked at californiagoldenblogs.com lately? All the Cam Mellor posts are gone, and Nick is back at the top!

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wow did sbnation abandon it? Maybe we WFC can get it back.

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Cam went on paternity leave and now he has a new job . . . and I'm sure they're not really going to be able to hire someone to cover USC/UCLA/Stanford/Cal for minimal pay, so it's now just a ghost ship.

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If Roger Stone called me a "weirdo", I'd have a hard look at myself.

https://twitter.com/ZTPetrizzo/status/1406618222024171525

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I'd just assume he was wrong, like he has been about so much in his life. Also, let them fight dot gif.

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Today in Covid-19

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Scary to see it increasing in some states, Missouri, Utah, Arkansas

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Hmm...I'm assuming they're states that have no mask mandates and opened up early...

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Comparing the two maps on NYT, it seems most closely related to the percentage of the population that is vaccinated.

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@gee I'm shocked the regions of the country that have less vaccination now have an increase in covid@

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I saw the stats though that have the number of daily cases and deaths down by full magnitudes

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Just got back from my local Safeway. Some shoppers were not wearing masks for the first time.

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Most here still wearing masks but I can see it's slowly relaxing. I ran in maskless the other day when I was just getting one thing.

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I did that last Friday for the first time since quarantine started. Went maskless inside a store.

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Pro

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Carl Nassib of Las Vegas Raiders announces he is gay, pledges $100,000 to Trevor Project

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/31682318/carl-nassib-las-vegas-raiders-announces-gay

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HENDERSON, Nev. -- Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib on Monday became the first active NFL player to come out as gay.

Nassib, 28, made the announcement in an Instagram post.

"What's up people?" Nassib posted. "I'm at my house here in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I just want to take a quick moment to say that I'm gay. I've been meaning to do this for a while now, but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest. I really have the best life, I've got the best family, friends and job a guy could ask for.

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Last week Shohei Ohtani

Tues - homerun

Wed - homerun

Thur - 6IP, 5K, 1ER, Win

Fri - homerun x 2

Sat - homerun

Sun - homerun

Total 7 hits (6 homers and 1 bunt hit)

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He's fucking amazing and so stupid for signing with the Angels

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I wonder if the NL had the DH if he would've signed with the Dodgers. I still don't want the DH.

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Possibly. Japanese players usually like to sign with west coast teams for the ease of living, especially for their families. Kenta Maeda's wife insisted on living in LA and he signed with Dodgers on a horrible contract until he requested to be traded last year where he could pitch as a starting pitcher. I think Ohtani needed a team with DH, but he can play outfield too.

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That's okay. Angels stadium is the closest from me so I can go watch him.

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Not in any games that have championship implications for the Angels 😛

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True. Wasted talents on that team

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Wasting Mike Trout's entire career is such an absolute travesty.

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No 1 and I went to the game he pitched against the Angels in May. Was pretty cool watching him pitch. It's too bad they didn't let him hit that game.

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NBA

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I like that the Final Four is a group of franchises that never win anything. Someone is breaking the curse this year.

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Ben Simmons was already dead to Philly fans due to him shooting 34% FT in the Playoffs and failing to take a shot in the 4Q in five of seven games. This was the cherry on top...

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1406798877722742787

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How has this guy not added anything to his offensive game since he entered the league? Still can't shoot, still hasn't improved his handles. If you're a top draft pick and All-Star who mostly just stands around during critical offensive possessions you might start to think there's a problem.

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I watched the last 8 min or so of the 4Q of game 6 and basically the entire 76ers offense during that time was PNR with Curry and Embiid. Was ugly as they blew their lead.

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It's been like that the whole playoffs. They have no creativity on offense down the stretch. They've been able to get by because they play great defense, but at some point this was going to bite them.

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He's a defensive destroyer, high end playmaker (probably the tier below Lebron, Paul, Harden, Westbrook, Doncic) but he's completely broken in how little he actually looks at the basket in the halfcourt. I think a change of scenery would do both him and the Sixers good (as a neutral fan, I think flipping him for CJ would be good for both teams)

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Suns beat the Clippers 120-114. Will Kawhi even come back?

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the end of the game was pretty good. the Suns had a 10 pt lead only to see it down to 2 before the final free throw and fouling bonanza.

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Hawks upset the 76ers 103-96. Just as we all predicted the Hawks will play the Bucks in the ECF.

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The dream is still alive!

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Game #73: A’s fall just short in 2-1 loss to Yankees

https://www.athleticsnation.com/2021/6/20/22542743/oakland-as-game-73-new-york-yankees-score-result

Argh.

The Oakland A’s had every chance to win on Sunday in the Bronx, but fell just short over and over in a 2-1 defeat by the New York Yankees. All the ingredients were there but nothing came at the right moment, and the green-and-gold leaves town with a frustrating series loss despite playing well all weekend.

For the third day in a row, the A’s homered in the 1st inning. This time it was Matt Olson again, same as he’d done Friday in the series opener. There was nobody on base, but it was still an early lead.

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Aroldis Chapman induced a game ending Triple Play in the top of the ninth when the A's had two runners on base with nobody out.

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Giants beat the Phillies 11-2

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I still can't believe how good this team is.

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I know, right? Still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

If it's mid-to-late August and the Giants are still playing .600 or better ball, then maybe it's real.

That's how cautious I am about putting myself out there to believe a playoff run is possible. It feels like 2010 without any knowledge of how that season would end.

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Their current playoff odds are projected to be around 75%, so I think you can start believing if you want to.

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Depends on who you ask. I think Baseball Prospectus still has them below 50% (I think BP's system prices in preseason predictions too much at this point).

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To me it feels more like 1997, in that they'd had losing records for several years and no reason to expect this year would be markedly different, yet somehow it was. Only that team wasn't actually all that good by the underlying metrics (they got outscored on the season), and this one is.

The success 2010 didn't shock me. They'd had a winning record in 2009. By season's end I thought they were clearly the 2nd best team in the NL and within striking distance of the #1 team (Philly). With their pitching staff a playoff run seemed entirely possible.

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My deadline is September.

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With Gausman having a Cy Young year at the top of the rotation, and Wood/DeScalfiani giving them more solid starts than not, they'll definitely hang around. Don't really see Crawford maintaining his pace, but they play D and if the pen can avoid the absolute meltdowns they had in the first month, they'll be in the mix.

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Dodgers celebrate Father’s Day with sweep

https://www.truebluela.com/2021/6/20/22542875/los-angeles-dodgers-mlb-news-albert-pujols

This game got too close for comfort, as the Dodgers nearly blew an eight-run lead. Luckily they pulled through, pulling out the 9-8 victory to give LA the sweep over the D-Backs.

It took a couple innings to heat things up, but the Dodgers piled on all nine of their runs over the course of innings 3-5. After a leadoff strikeout, Chris Taylor and AJ Pollock each reached base to start the rally. Justin Turner then singled in the first run of the game for the Dodgers.

Albert Pujols stepped up to the plate and crushed a three-run homer, giving the Dodgers the 4-0 lead. For Pujols, it’s his sixth home run already while with the Dodgers. Since he debuted with the Dodgers on May 17, his six homers are tied for the team lead. Not a bad addition, I’d say. For those curious, he is now 27 home runs away from 700.

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Bought tickets to my first game at Dodgers Stadium, Monday 6/28 v. the Giants. As an A's fan I will be a passive attendee, but will probably go full GBBR for the fun of it.

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Other College

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Supreme Court unanimously rules against NCAA in athlete compensation case

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/supreme-court-unanimously-rules-against-ncaa-in-athlete-compensation-case-11624288257

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Didn't SCOTUS leave a pretty narrow window as to "compensation"? That is, education-focused swag and small stipends - but NOT substantial cash payments that would constitute a salary or anything close to what the SEC wants to pay (or is already paying) their guys.

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This seems pretty devastating to the NCAA.

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Not really, not at all.

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let's see what happens in like 2030.

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