I remember when he used to do NBA on NBC games and he was more of a "normal" basketball announcer. A little kooky, but mostly just analyzing the game like anyone else.
Since he started doing college games on ESPN he's really leaned into being an old weirdo who rambles about non-basketball topics. Some folks love it.
He's a national treasure in that he champions the Pac-12 like no other, which I personally appreciate. Other than that, he's pretty suspect, tho I'd rather have him than some random network voice that studied the media notes for an hour before tip...but even his broadcast partner (oftentimes play-by-play man Dave Pasch) pokes fun at him...
It takes the right play by play to work with a non-standard color person. I'm reminded of the guy who does play by play for figure skaing with Tara and Johnny. He's riding two tigers at once who champion figure skating, but NOT the governing bodies, or judges.
Dr. Kent Weeks. My Egyptian Archaeology professor at Cal. He became famous after discovering the Tomb of Ramses' sons (KV-5) in the Valley of the Kings in the mid 90's and landed on the front page of Time Magazine.
Fuul/foul/ful mudammas. While hummus is everywhere in Egypt, fuul is perhaps the second most common dish. I think it's really yummy and I'm surprised that it isn't more commonly served in Mediterranean restaurants. Or perhaps it's called something else and I don't know it.
I ate fuul most days when I was in Egypt (4 months). Don't have it in the big box grocery stores for the most part but you can get it canned in Middle Eastern markets or get dried Fava beans at Berkeley Bowl to make your own, which I do on occasion.
He was a really good author - I read Midaq Alley, the Beginning and the End, Palace Walk, and the Journey of Ibn Fattouma. That last one was up there with A Bend in the River for musings on the cold war and the colonial experience (I'd now add "The Sympathizer" by Viet Than Nguyen onto that list)
The Kane Chronicles, Rick Riordan's Egyptian mythology series version of the Percy Jackson series. Both series were great. I still haven't read the last couple Percy Jackson books. I used to read them with both No 2 and 3.
Corporate pension from my first job is still there and well-funded, but retirement age is till 15 years down the road (so is SS). In the meantime I'm divesting and investing at the same time and am slowing down from my usual frenetic work pace and will be a FIRE candidate in a year or so.
I'm mentally ready to retire now, but the budget is not ready for that. There's a whole lot more on my mind around the absolute tire fire of my parents' "golden years" from their budget problems, as well as their physical inability to enjoy this time, but that's probably not what you had in mind here.
Since I work for a county which is part of CalPers, I have a defined benefit retirement plan. If I retired to day, I would get about $50K/year in retirement.
The plan is to keep at it until 65-ish which will make it quite a bit higher.
Similar boat, though not hooked into CalPERS. Our retirement system offers 2.6% of terminal compensation for each year of service. I'm already at 31 years of service and expect to have 36 or 37 when I retire. 36 years of service is effectively 100% of gross (a touch more), because as it is now my gross is reduced by 8.5% for my contribution to the retirement system. In retirement I won't make those contributions. I will, instead, reap from them.
Yeah, I'm only at 16 yrs of service right now. Need to be closer to 25 yrs for higher payouts. CalPers caps you at 100% of final gross (or a touch less in some cases). Due to some crazy scam stuff by some towns a few years back.
That's amazing. I have figured that I need to generate half of my pre-retirement income in retirement (because I do not need to contribute to savings as I do now) and the second I hit that metric I'm outta here.
Nick Rolovich’s coronavirus vaccine refusal puts Washington State in awkward position, censured by the University president and governor Jay Inslee....
At last night's dinner, my son had what I think is a solid idea, but I have no knowledge of whether the Big-10/14 is interested. Rather than expand, make a pack with the Big-10 for each Pac-12 team to play two Big-10 teams every year, drop one Pac-12 game leaving 2 games open on the schedule.
That sounds like a good idea and doable. It requires, though, work with the schedules of each team in both conferences as schedules are often filled out 5 or more years in advance.
While each Pac-12 team would have two games against B1G opponents, not every B1G team would have 2 Pac-12 opponents: 10 teams would have 2 Pac-12 opponents while 4 would have 1 Pac-12 opponent.
There's a possibility that one of those 24 matchups would be a potential Rose Bowl match for the following New Year's Day.
The NCAA could use some new leadership. I don't think Mark Emmert is suited for the role any more. His job is to be the leadership of the NCAA. The NCAA is "a member-led organization dedicated to the well-being and lifelong success of college athletes". Notice that financial support of the member school is not its mandate, but we all know that dollar are what matter. Emmert didn't punish LSU for what they did. Emmert let everyone including Arizona slide for paying players and let the individuals take the rap. It doesn't seem like Emmert will punish money making programs, which means that there isn't much downside to non-compliance.
He didn't provide leadership on what to do during Covid to protect the college athletes as the conferences had to make their own policies. And we all know how that went. And he sat on his thumb when it came time to NIL and had forever to formulate back-up plans. Now the NCAA has almost nothing now that the Supreme Court ruled for effectively unfetter professionalism in college sports.
His verbal commitment to the laissez faire approach is the opposite of his mandate. So now football - the sport that brings in three-quarters of college revenues and almost 100% of profits - is blowing up with money shifting to the more successful conferences and away from the less successful ones.
Title IX means that women's sports have to be supported, which means that all other men's programs will be a threat of being demoted to club status because of the budget crunch. Some more expensive/less popular sports like men's track, men's swimming, men's gymnastics, men's volleyball, and men's water polo will see marginal programs be demoted from varsity status. Emmert is sacrificing hundreds - perhaps thousands of aspiring male student-athletes at the expense of satisfying a few dozen football players in the US Southeast.
He gets paid $2.9m a year to not look after student-athletes. I love college football. I love the free market. But even my cold commercialist heart isn't cruel enough to leave the free market to decide what happens to college student-athletics.
I told you not to watch today, in my Game Thread preview. If you did, it’s your own fault.
The Oakland A’s lost by one run again, this time 4-3 to the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park on Sunday. Another close game, another round of more stuff going wrong than right, and another chapter in an oddly exasperating season that still has the A’s in playoff position — for now.
Oakland has played 19 games in July, and 11 have been decided by one run. They are 3-8 in those games. They were 12-10 in such contests entering this month.
Disappointing series for the Giants, losing 2 of 3 to a bad Pirates team. Though one mitigating factor is that they sat some players for the first game (getting some rest coming out of the tough Dodgers series).
Chris Taylor homered twice, and Will Smith hit a game-winning solo shot in the eighth inning to back a strong combined pitching performance in the Dodgers’ 3-2 win over the Rockies on Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.
Smith, whose walk-off homer won Tuesday’s game against San Francisco, broke a tie in the eighth inning Sunday with his fourth home run over his last seven games, and his second against Rockies reliever Carlos Estévez in eight days.
TCU Tailgate. Vendor is not being super responsive, but I've have made some assumptions based on past experience with them. That being said, it looks like I'm going for 3 tents, 3 giant coolers w/ ice (BYOB), a few starter beers, insurance, and catering of smoked brisket + Greek salad + Mac 'n Cheese for under $60 person. Max 60 people. Tickets will likely go on sale at cost in the 3rd week of August once I'm back from vacation. No "I'll pay you later" shenanigans this year because I got stiffed in 2019 by some fraternity brothers and had to eat that loss. I am going for a smaller tailgate this year because bigger ones need dedicated staff, which I'm not doing during a Covid year. Also, catering is only a single meat because the Ole Miss game people took dual serving meat and we ran out of food. It's Texas, so I have to do beef. I'm pretty sure it's the law, or something.
You should get a price reduction due to the Big 12 dissolving and tell them that a TCU tailgate without Texas or OU in the Big 12 is only worth $40 per person.
Can't retire if you've never had a job, but hopefully I get to retire an accomplished sports broadcaster/journalist.
Also a side note for those who saw DBD friday: my grandmother passed away peacefully Sunday morning while I was on the move to Lake Tahoe. An unceremonious ending to a great life but now she is at peace with my grandfather 15 years and 2 days after he left, it'll be a tough service for sure when the extended family comes into town.
Video of a rock slide in India. It is 60 seconds of chaos. Watch until end.
https://twitter.com/blusewillis1/status/1419319428731318272
Olympics
went viral 6 years ago skateboarding in a fairy costume, now an Olympic medalist: https://twitter.com/tonyhawk/status/641374976927399938?s=20
https://twitter.com/Olympics/status/1419531874498658304?s=20
That is amazingly adorable.
DBD food lab
The wife tried a new way of making elote to go with Southwest chicken thighs, and it was a winner. Washed down with a cult Paso blend.
I love elote. Did she make it on the cob or in a bowl?
Cobs, cut in half for ease of eating.
Nice, I enjoy it both ways but prefer it on a cob.
I didn't make it, but I did the DC double yesterday by having both a chili half smoke and pupusas at the DC United game last night
Bill Walton
National Treasure
He was the best announcer during Cal games.
I'm always fascinated at the strength of opinion about his commentary. Since I don't watch basketball, I've never heard him try and navigate a game.
I remember when he used to do NBA on NBC games and he was more of a "normal" basketball announcer. A little kooky, but mostly just analyzing the game like anyone else.
Since he started doing college games on ESPN he's really leaned into being an old weirdo who rambles about non-basketball topics. Some folks love it.
It's 1% basketball, 99% stories of being stoned in various locations
so he's plainly not the play-by-play guy
He's a national treasure in that he champions the Pac-12 like no other, which I personally appreciate. Other than that, he's pretty suspect, tho I'd rather have him than some random network voice that studied the media notes for an hour before tip...but even his broadcast partner (oftentimes play-by-play man Dave Pasch) pokes fun at him...
It takes the right play by play to work with a non-standard color person. I'm reminded of the guy who does play by play for figure skaing with Tara and Johnny. He's riding two tigers at once who champion figure skating, but NOT the governing bodies, or judges.
Dave Pasch is great as well.
Fact
Something Egyptian
Dr. Kent Weeks. My Egyptian Archaeology professor at Cal. He became famous after discovering the Tomb of Ramses' sons (KV-5) in the Valley of the Kings in the mid 90's and landed on the front page of Time Magazine.
Fuul/foul/ful mudammas. While hummus is everywhere in Egypt, fuul is perhaps the second most common dish. I think it's really yummy and I'm surprised that it isn't more commonly served in Mediterranean restaurants. Or perhaps it's called something else and I don't know it.
I ate fuul most days when I was in Egypt (4 months). Don't have it in the big box grocery stores for the most part but you can get it canned in Middle Eastern markets or get dried Fava beans at Berkeley Bowl to make your own, which I do on occasion.
Naguib Mahfouz’s Akenaten: Dweller in Truth. Great novel and use of perspective
He was a really good author - I read Midaq Alley, the Beginning and the End, Palace Walk, and the Journey of Ibn Fattouma. That last one was up there with A Bend in the River for musings on the cold war and the colonial experience (I'd now add "The Sympathizer" by Viet Than Nguyen onto that list)
The Kane Chronicles, Rick Riordan's Egyptian mythology series version of the Percy Jackson series. Both series were great. I still haven't read the last couple Percy Jackson books. I used to read them with both No 2 and 3.
They were adequate as stories. The Norse ones were almost unreadable.
I didn't read those with the boys. I think No 3 did read a couple. I'll have to ask him what he thought of them.
Ramses_Abu-Simbel.gif
an iconic protest picture: https://twitter.com/JefeelChefe/status/701490120306855936?s=20
Retirement
Corporate pension from my first job is still there and well-funded, but retirement age is till 15 years down the road (so is SS). In the meantime I'm divesting and investing at the same time and am slowing down from my usual frenetic work pace and will be a FIRE candidate in a year or so.
I have yet to give a single thought to retirement.
I'm mentally ready to retire now, but the budget is not ready for that. There's a whole lot more on my mind around the absolute tire fire of my parents' "golden years" from their budget problems, as well as their physical inability to enjoy this time, but that's probably not what you had in mind here.
Reality is the biggest interferer with retirement hopes for most folks!
What is this socialist/communist policy that you call “retirement” that you speak of?
This is America! We work until we die. That is retirement. Freedom!!
Since I work for a county which is part of CalPers, I have a defined benefit retirement plan. If I retired to day, I would get about $50K/year in retirement.
The plan is to keep at it until 65-ish which will make it quite a bit higher.
Also, I get Social Security on top of my retirement benefit.
Similar boat, though not hooked into CalPERS. Our retirement system offers 2.6% of terminal compensation for each year of service. I'm already at 31 years of service and expect to have 36 or 37 when I retire. 36 years of service is effectively 100% of gross (a touch more), because as it is now my gross is reduced by 8.5% for my contribution to the retirement system. In retirement I won't make those contributions. I will, instead, reap from them.
Yeah, I'm only at 16 yrs of service right now. Need to be closer to 25 yrs for higher payouts. CalPers caps you at 100% of final gross (or a touch less in some cases). Due to some crazy scam stuff by some towns a few years back.
That's amazing. I have figured that I need to generate half of my pre-retirement income in retirement (because I do not need to contribute to savings as I do now) and the second I hit that metric I'm outta here.
That sounds great!
that sounds *very* civilized
Defined benefit plans are the bomb. And you will get SS on top of that, yes?
I think this is inliu of SS. But we've got some some other savings going (IRA, etc).
I'm wrong we get SS also.
Today in Covid
Nick Rolovich’s coronavirus vaccine refusal puts Washington State in awkward position, censured by the University president and governor Jay Inslee....
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/07/26/sports/sports-breaking/rolovich-vaccine-decision-puts-wazzu-in-awkward-position/
Elsewhere in college
It's official Texas and OU are out.
https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1419663733828243457
Seems like it might be a bigger headache than it's worth to have Texas in your conference.
From the FP:
At last night's dinner, my son had what I think is a solid idea, but I have no knowledge of whether the Big-10/14 is interested. Rather than expand, make a pack with the Big-10 for each Pac-12 team to play two Big-10 teams every year, drop one Pac-12 game leaving 2 games open on the schedule.
I wonder if all this means we'll lose our games against Auburn and Florida.
Nah, this would be sometime in the future. If it happens at all.
That sounds like a good idea and doable. It requires, though, work with the schedules of each team in both conferences as schedules are often filled out 5 or more years in advance.
While each Pac-12 team would have two games against B1G opponents, not every B1G team would have 2 Pac-12 opponents: 10 teams would have 2 Pac-12 opponents while 4 would have 1 Pac-12 opponent.
There's a possibility that one of those 24 matchups would be a potential Rose Bowl match for the following New Year's Day.
This is my opinion and mine alone...
The NCAA could use some new leadership. I don't think Mark Emmert is suited for the role any more. His job is to be the leadership of the NCAA. The NCAA is "a member-led organization dedicated to the well-being and lifelong success of college athletes". Notice that financial support of the member school is not its mandate, but we all know that dollar are what matter. Emmert didn't punish LSU for what they did. Emmert let everyone including Arizona slide for paying players and let the individuals take the rap. It doesn't seem like Emmert will punish money making programs, which means that there isn't much downside to non-compliance.
He didn't provide leadership on what to do during Covid to protect the college athletes as the conferences had to make their own policies. And we all know how that went. And he sat on his thumb when it came time to NIL and had forever to formulate back-up plans. Now the NCAA has almost nothing now that the Supreme Court ruled for effectively unfetter professionalism in college sports.
His verbal commitment to the laissez faire approach is the opposite of his mandate. So now football - the sport that brings in three-quarters of college revenues and almost 100% of profits - is blowing up with money shifting to the more successful conferences and away from the less successful ones.
Title IX means that women's sports have to be supported, which means that all other men's programs will be a threat of being demoted to club status because of the budget crunch. Some more expensive/less popular sports like men's track, men's swimming, men's gymnastics, men's volleyball, and men's water polo will see marginal programs be demoted from varsity status. Emmert is sacrificing hundreds - perhaps thousands of aspiring male student-athletes at the expense of satisfying a few dozen football players in the US Southeast.
He gets paid $2.9m a year to not look after student-athletes. I love college football. I love the free market. But even my cold commercialist heart isn't cruel enough to leave the free market to decide what happens to college student-athletics.
Our crumbling democracy
ICYMI: [WaPo] Trump's Save America PAC - ostensibly to investigate the AZ ballot - has collected $75m in 2021 and sent zero to the AZ audit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pac-ballot-reviews/2021/07/22/d451fcaa-e596-11eb-934f-7e6c1927f261_story.html
They really are emphasizing how toothless any regulations about PACs are.
Kinzinger (R-IL) accepts seat on 1/6 House Select Committee
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/25/politics/nancy-pelosi-adam-kinzinger-house-select-committee-mccarthy-republicans/index.html
PRO
Rodgers expected to be back in Green Bay
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/31890729/green-bay-packers-craft-list-concessions-entice-aaron-rodgers-return-least-one-more-season-sources-say
A's lose 3 of 4 to the Mariners and are listing. Zzzzz....
USA 1-0 over Jamaica. Overall a good game for US men's team, Jamaica has good team speed and a solid keeper.
Gold Cup semifinals are set: USA vs. Qatar, Mexico vs. Canada
Why is Qatar in a North American tournament? They were an invited guest as the hosts of the next World Cup.
Gold Cup has often has non CONCACAF nations participate - Brazil has won it a couple of times, and Korea was in the 2002 Gold Cup.
Game #101: A’s lose another one-run game, let Mariners back into Wild Card race
https://www.athleticsnation.com/2021/7/25/22593460/oakland-as-game-101-seattle-mariners-score-result
I told you not to watch today, in my Game Thread preview. If you did, it’s your own fault.
The Oakland A’s lost by one run again, this time 4-3 to the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park on Sunday. Another close game, another round of more stuff going wrong than right, and another chapter in an oddly exasperating season that still has the A’s in playoff position — for now.
Oakland has played 19 games in July, and 11 have been decided by one run. They are 3-8 in those games. They were 12-10 in such contests entering this month.
This has been a very frustrating stretch of games.
Giants beat the Padres 6-1
*Pirates
oops...yes.
Disappointing series for the Giants, losing 2 of 3 to a bad Pirates team. Though one mitigating factor is that they sat some players for the first game (getting some rest coming out of the tough Dodgers series).
Gausman is regressing to the mean....
Maybe, though that's an easy thing to say after his worst start of the season. His two starts before the All-Star Break were very good.
Chris Taylor, Will Smith power Dodgers over Rockies
https://www.truebluela.com/2021/7/25/22593367/chris-taylor-will-smith-home-runs-dodgers-bullpen-josiah-gray-rockies
Chris Taylor homered twice, and Will Smith hit a game-winning solo shot in the eighth inning to back a strong combined pitching performance in the Dodgers’ 3-2 win over the Rockies on Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.
Smith, whose walk-off homer won Tuesday’s game against San Francisco, broke a tie in the eighth inning Sunday with his fourth home run over his last seven games, and his second against Rockies reliever Carlos Estévez in eight days.
GBBR
CAL
It's now after 7PM EDT and I guess someone should say "Go Bears!"
TCU Tailgate. Vendor is not being super responsive, but I've have made some assumptions based on past experience with them. That being said, it looks like I'm going for 3 tents, 3 giant coolers w/ ice (BYOB), a few starter beers, insurance, and catering of smoked brisket + Greek salad + Mac 'n Cheese for under $60 person. Max 60 people. Tickets will likely go on sale at cost in the 3rd week of August once I'm back from vacation. No "I'll pay you later" shenanigans this year because I got stiffed in 2019 by some fraternity brothers and had to eat that loss. I am going for a smaller tailgate this year because bigger ones need dedicated staff, which I'm not doing during a Covid year. Also, catering is only a single meat because the Ole Miss game people took dual serving meat and we ran out of food. It's Texas, so I have to do beef. I'm pretty sure it's the law, or something.
MMM...sounds great! Can't wait.
Tickets will (probably) go on sale 8/16/21. I'm happy to also sell by Venmo, which will save you the fees.
You should get a price reduction due to the Big 12 dissolving and tell them that a TCU tailgate without Texas or OU in the Big 12 is only worth $40 per person.
hahahaha
in
Can't retire if you've never had a job, but hopefully I get to retire an accomplished sports broadcaster/journalist.
Also a side note for those who saw DBD friday: my grandmother passed away peacefully Sunday morning while I was on the move to Lake Tahoe. An unceremonious ending to a great life but now she is at peace with my grandfather 15 years and 2 days after he left, it'll be a tough service for sure when the extended family comes into town.
Condolences on the loss of your beloved grandmother.
<3
May her memory be a blessing.
Condolences. It's always tough, even when it was expected.