A day away.

Screw these internet problems. I’m off to New York this morning, and I’ll be back Sunday.

Open thread. Here’s one conversation-starter, about Michigan football, but I think the impulses behind it apply to a lot more than just one school. Greed ruins everything.

See you after the weekend.

Posted at 12:37 am in Housekeeping |
 

84 responses to “A day away.”

  1. Dexter said on September 27, 2013 at 1:50 am

    I had to quit attending M games after the year they doubled the price, something like from $26 to $52. I had been used to paying from $35 to $50 , a few times I had to pay $75 from “scalpers”, but when the face went to over $50, the scalpers accelerated to demanding $100, and I quit going. I ended up seeing over 100 games, home and road, and that is that. It’s tougher now, as to get in using a selling student’s ticket, you have to go through the rigmarole of reporting to an office, where the ticket is re-priced for the buyer…who wants to sit with a bunch of fucked-up partying students anyway? M football used to be magical, the aisles were cluttered with half-pint empties and a million empty beer bottle and cans, and food wrappers from Zingerman’s special sandwiches. Now you’ll be kicked out if spotted with a beer and I saw a little girl have a cookie ripped out of her hand and thrown away into a basket by a ticket-taker security guy. No food allowed. I had my days and I have my memories, and I never miss the games on TV or the internet radio. I guess today’s students and fans have a different set of circumstances alright. Everything changes; soon the players will be getting a cash stipend, and the NCAA will endorse this policy.

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  2. Deborah said on September 27, 2013 at 5:28 am

    The only time I ever attended a Big Ten football game was at the University of Illinois and I was miserable. It was freezing cold. U of I is my husband’s undergrad alma mater, his mother, father and two sisters graduated from there as well. My husband isn’t into football either, we just went with his mother and some of her friends for a special occasion. The seats were hard as a rock, the wind was whipping through the stadium. I have no recollection of which team they played or anything about the game.

    We have another skunk coming around again, damn it.

    We finished the retile of the bathroom floor. I have decided that tiling is my least favorite job. Because you have to crawl on your hands and knees and when you start actually laying the tile there’s a time element. It makes me crazy when I have to do something within a certain time frame or it will be ruined, if the mastic or grout sets up on the area you’re working on too soon.

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  3. Basset said on September 27, 2013 at 5:39 am

    Never went to a single football game while I was at IU. Never been to NY either, no reason to go there.

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  4. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 6:22 am

    Basset, You are so wrong. It is the capitol of the world. And clearly the coolest place anywhere. Nashvull idn’t. And futball at IU isn’t football. It’s punt John Punt.

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  5. ROGirl said on September 27, 2013 at 6:38 am

    I went to 2 or 3 games a season in Ann Arbor. They are long and boring, but it was fun to watch the cheerleaders (male) do backflips off the wall around the field by the student section and tumbling routines with a mini-trampoline. I usually left after half time.

    The library was empty on football Saturdays.

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  6. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 6:47 am

    Michigan football ceased to matter some time ago, It’s SEC baybe. Same as hoops. And I went to some drug company comped ball games ar the Bif House and could never understand taking the sobriwuet from the penitentionerry. I will remain the white girl in the loop. And I’m waiting for a new season of Orange. Way better than Breaking Bad.

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  7. Joe K said on September 27, 2013 at 7:01 am

    I would suggest reading the artical at the bottom about jerry ford.
    Interesting.
    Pilot Joe

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  8. alex said on September 27, 2013 at 7:25 am

    A link to the Ford story. Didn’t know about this before. Too bad he was tarnished by his association with Nixon. He would have made a much better president than Reagan.

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  9. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 27, 2013 at 7:59 am

    First heard the Jerry Ford story from Bush 41 watching CSPAN for Ford’s funeral; there’s also an amazing story about how his athletic ability saved his life on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific during WWII. They were in a storm, and the deck was pitching to a shocking extent; he and some others slid across the steeply sloping flight deck, and he caught himself going over the edge — others fell into the sea, and Ford hung there through a full roll through the trough of a massive wave, out and then back in-board, when he could chin himself back up onto the ship. Sounds like a Bruce Willis movie scene.

    I hear many of the same points made by Ohio State students today; last week’s tomato can of Florida A& M at 76-0 wasn’t worth the time it took to walk to the stadium from Morrill Tower, and the “safety rules” barring of outside food let alone beverages are ludicrous to the extreme. I get safety and I appreciate trying to mute the culture of excessive drinking, but it’s all so much about pushing sales of overpriced product (and sad stuff it is) that even the security guys don’t try to hide it. What I don’t get, knowing where our local economy still is at: who are the people filling the seats? Because as long as there are 60-80,000 people willing to pay three bills and be treated like Grade B cattle each home Saturday and sit through the TV timeouts, nothing’s gonna change other than the demographics of the fans. Very, very few students any more in Ohio Stadium, and that’s sad. (I’ve never attended a game inside the stadium, gone on a couple of tailgate trips only.)

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  10. LAMary said on September 27, 2013 at 9:22 am

    University of Denver has no football team and that’s fine with me. They have hockey and ski teams and I enjoyed going to hockey games. They were never boring.

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  11. Julie Robinson said on September 27, 2013 at 9:27 am

    Between being in marching band and my dad’s broadcast work, I’ve attended a gazillion football games, and almost all of them match Deborah’s description. So when I enrolled at IU, which hasn’t had a decent team in my memory, I was happy to never, ever go to a game. But I often ambled over to watch the Marching 100 practice in the late afternoons while I did some light studying. Years later we were given tickets to a game and I finally got to see them perform in uniform. It almost made up for sitting through the game itself.

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  12. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 9:29 am

    NYC is the best.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOmZimH00oo

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  13. MichaelG said on September 27, 2013 at 11:17 am

    I went to lots of football games when I was at Univ of Illinois and always had a great time. Maybe it was even when your hubby was there, Deborah. Anyway, Bacon’s article was really sad. He is entirely correct. Michigan football is leaving the students. I’m guessing it’s the same just about everywhere.

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  14. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 12:04 pm

    Most recent version of the Atlantic says HS sports make HS dumb. Tell that to the Jebbies ahole.Best schools, best sports.

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  15. Dexter said on September 27, 2013 at 1:09 pm

    The whole re-shuffle of the conferences is the reason for the debacle last Saturday at The ‘Shoe in C-Bus. The team was not supposed to be on OSU’s schedule, but the team that was scheduled had entered another conference and was forced to pull out of the commitment.
    I used to dread seeing the espn trucks parked outside M Stadium because I knew I was in for a 4 hour and fifteen minute game instead of a three hour game. After three hours my ass began to hurt badly.
    Dr, Wu, so right…Don Canham never would have promoted M Stadium as “The Big House”. I find it extremely offensive, as it is the Ohio State program that keeps producing scores of criminal players who indeed see the inside of the Ohio penal facilities.

    I can’t get the picture out of my head of the Chinese man who has a nose growing on his forehead , later to be implanted to his nose-area. It just looks too weird . The doctors put the new nose there to assimilate to the person’s blood,I guess. http://dailyentertainmentnews.com/wpgo/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Xiaolian-china-nose-forehead-picture-240×300.jpg

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  16. Jolene said on September 27, 2013 at 1:28 pm

    On BBC News, Dexter, they said that growing the new nose on the patient’s would allow the to reposition it without much disruption of the skin or blood vessels. Pretty weird, indeed, but also very creative and technically sophisticated, not to mention better than going through life without a nose.

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  17. Jolene said on September 27, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    Should say ” . . . on the patient’s forehead.”

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  18. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 1:57 pm

    Have fun in the capital of the free world Nancy. There is no city finer, even Hitsville, USA.

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  19. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    Meanwhile, the Koch Kriminal Kons[iracy is growing new noses all over the Teabanging landscape, to noodle then when their aholes are getting smooched by dickheads like Canadian Senator Cruz. In mid Faux- Mr. Jefferson. I do not like fake Hams and Scam. Did the asshole ever read the book rightside up?

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  20. Connie said on September 27, 2013 at 2:20 pm

    I attended MSU football games for two years and Michigan for one season as a grad student. Large quantities of alcohol accompanied us to those games. As grad students from all over the country Michigan treated us like freshmen and gave us reserved seats high up in the end zone. I’ve been to a few Michigan games since then, but it has been a long time. I think I am equal distance from the Big House and the TIgers’ Comerica Park.

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  21. Basset said on September 27, 2013 at 2:41 pm

    Not wrong, Wu, just different.

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  22. Sherri said on September 27, 2013 at 3:02 pm

    While I prefer baseball and hockey in person, I’d rather watch football at home on my HD television. No drunks, no cold weather, and during the interminable breaks, football on other channels. Even when I drank myself, the drunks at football games were annoying.

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  23. MichaelG said on September 27, 2013 at 5:45 pm

    I agree, Sherri. Hockey is a perfect sized game to see in person. You can see it better than on TV. Football is best watched on the tube for a lot of reasons. Still, there is the life, the electricity of a real game to be appreciated in person.

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  24. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    Football on TeeVee has way too much of the Little Shining Man. Impedes the aggression, which is why we played in the first place. It is impossible to explain football to anybody that didn’t ever play.

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  25. Dr. Wu said on September 27, 2013 at 6:20 pm

    Ranking on football is so oldschool, you’d think somebody woulda put a cork in it. It is seriously fun, especially to play it. And if anybody tried pulling that dive-ology from the “Beautiful game” actual football players would leave the wussies lying there, writhing.

    And as usual, Sherri is correct. Baseball in person is the sublimest sports experience. Fenway s highly recommended. Astounding, on a Spring day. BU hockey at Nicholson is pretty fracking good too.

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  26. Deborah said on September 27, 2013 at 7:51 pm

    Michael G, my husband graduated from U of I in 67 (I think I didn’t know him then and he skipped a grade in high school so started college early so it’s always hard for me to calculate). His older sister graduated in 63 or 64 and his younger sister graduated in 72. I have no idea when his parents graduated, his mom is 94 now, so whenever. I think my husband went to games when he was a student, I should ask him.

    Today I took out an old, ugly light fixture in the bathroom and capped off the wires and the junction box. I am terrified of electrical stuff even more than using a power saw or a nail gun. I watched a million You Tube videos about how to do it. It’s really pretty easy, it’s just getting over the fear of killing myself in the process. Of course we turned off the circuit breaker and double (triple) checked the power was off, but I still wore rubber soled shoes and gloves. Then we spackled all the stuff that needed it. Tomorrow we paint. Then we install the sink, cabinet and the shelving unit next to it. I finally got what was missing from Ikea and a friend of Little Bird who does a lot of work on plumbing is going to hold our hand as we connect the sink up. I was going to hire a plumber but the more videos I watch the more I think we can do it ourselves with a little help from a friend. Here’s hoping anyway.

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  27. Deborah said on September 27, 2013 at 7:52 pm

    Prospero, what’s with the new moniker?

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  28. Kaye said on September 27, 2013 at 11:42 pm

    I love the festival atmosphere of Live sports. Routinely climbed to the upper reaches of C deck to watch OSU for several seasons in the late nineties. Those stairs would kill me today! Equally happy to watch high school football, it’s all about the shared experience for me.

    Bassett – How did the potatoes in the barrel turn out? I am much more likely to care for something on a container than in the ground so I hope it was successful. Saw a blurb somewhere today about a hybrid tomato/potato plant. Wonder if those will be available next season.

    Deborah – I am impressed with your willingness to Reno a bathroom! Plumbing and electricity in a small space, yikes! Maybe your efforts will inspire me.

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  29. Dexter said on September 28, 2013 at 12:49 am

    One year I attended every game, home and away, of the Wolverine football team. It was the national championship year, when the writers gave old decrepit Tom Osbourne of Nebraska a share of the title because he was retiring due to A-Fib. Heart condition, not a liar.
    That year the MSU game was in East Lansing. I remember parking my little Mercury Lynx between twin black Lincoln Navigators. I was intimidated. I found a ticket and then I found I had to climb an interminable staircase to get to the upper deck. Maybe there was an alternative way to ascend to that height but I had no time to investigate. I sat amongst some kids wearing their old FFA jackets and I swear I smelled pig shit on them. I kept thinking they could have showered before heading to the stadium. That was the game I saw a play still talked about: Mike Woodson leaped high in the sky and snatched a pass one-handed. Isaw it but I couldn’t believe it happened. That is one reason to watch sports, to see great physical acts performed.
    Football has always been as if was designed to be watched on TV. TV ruins baseball more than any other sport. Hockey can only be truly, fully appreciated live. My nephew’s wife, who is being quoted all the time in the Chicago media, as she is now the CPS media spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, used to be media director of the Chicago Fire soccer team, and she and my nephew loved the live action at Toyota Park, but I don’t know anything about watching pro soccer.
    Live action remains a memory, but rarely does a TV game leave that same kind of mark.

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  30. Sherri said on September 28, 2013 at 2:08 am

    The best live sporting event I’ve even been to was the World Cup. I went to a couple of games in the 1994 World Cup at Stanford Stadium, and even though I’m not that much of a soccer fan, it was fun to go to the games. I saw Brazil-Cameroon and Sweden-Romania.

    I’ve been to World Series games, but never to a Stanley Cup finals game. I have no interest in going to a Super Bowl, nor to a men’s Final Four game, not now that they play in domes. You’d need to take a TV with you to see the game, you’re so far away. I may go to the women’s Final Four next spring, though; it’s possible to get tickets, and it’s in Nashville, so I can combine it with a visit to family.

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  31. Deborah said on September 28, 2013 at 2:28 am

    I prefer hockey or basketball games live, next is baseball, last in my opinion is football. When I was a kid growing up in Miami, FL, my Dad used to drag me and my sister to Dolphin games, in those days you could sit in the end zone for $1. They played in the old Orange Bowl stadium. He also used to take us to Marlin games, I think they were the baseball farm team for the Orioles, or something. I was always worried that a foul ball would bean me. I didn’t attend hockey games until I lived in St. Louis, those Blues games were fun, but I always sat in the nosebleed cheap seats. I used to attend at least one Cardinals baseball game a year and since living in Chicago I’ve only ever attended one Cubs game. I’ve been to one Bulls game too. Not a big sports fan.

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  32. alex said on September 28, 2013 at 9:12 am

    Deborah, I’m still trembling to this day when I recall a certain chandelier hanging incident quite a few years back. I knew a ditzy gal who lived in a hi-rise on North Sheridan. She was into mid-century retro furniture and lighting and wanted to be rid of the gothic monstrosity hanging in her dining room, so she asked me to replace it with a funky ’50s fixture she’d picked up. I put her in charge of the circuit breakers. Big mistake. After I got the thing hung I came to find out it had been live the whole frickin’ time.

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  33. coozledad said on September 28, 2013 at 11:29 am

    Alex: I was hanging a light fixture once with the switch off, and I kept feeling stray voltage from what had to be the return wire. Once I got the light fixture in I realized it had been wired to two separate switches, and it wasn’t stray voltage in the least.

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  34. Sherri said on September 28, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    We always use a voltmeter to check the voltage after turning off the circuit breaker before doing anything electrical. The circuit breaker being off isn’t a guarantee, unless you can see the whole circuit; that switch you’re working might be on a different circuit breaker even though it looks like it should be on this one. Check the voltage! Multimeters are cheap; no reason not to have one in your toolbox.

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  35. coozledad said on September 28, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    Sherri: I worked for an electrical contractor for awhile, and that’s where I picked up my bad habits. You wouldn’t believe how many electricians I’ve seen fall out of a drop-in ceiling after they had a brief chat with 220 volts.

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  36. alex said on September 28, 2013 at 1:23 pm

    In our investment property we acquired last year, we found lights that were on THREE switches! Not to mention the water heater not being grounded and the water softener draining onto the floor of the utility closet they shared. I’m also discovering cracked footings that weren’t apparent at the time. But no matter, I can still rent it out for a price that will be a better return on investment than anything else you can park your cash in these days.

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  37. Dr. Wu said on September 28, 2013 at 2:28 pm

    Deborah, the website stopped remembering my name so I changed it. One thing nobody ever seems to remember about bigtime college football. It pays for all of the other sports, particularly the Title IX sports, and some research profs as well.

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  38. Sherri said on September 28, 2013 at 2:56 pm

    Sadly, cooz, I would. I lost a friend who fell off a ladder and hit a concrete floor head first after such an encounter. The traumatic brain injury did him in. He was an electrical contractor on the job. Check the voltage! It only takes a minute.

    Old houses are the worst; you never know what insane things a previous owner has done to them.

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  39. Suzanne said on September 28, 2013 at 3:16 pm

    I’ve gone to a few college football games in my day, generally Big 10, or however many schools there are now. I didn’t much in my college days although then the tickets were something like $30 for students…for the whole season.

    TV has ruined it for me (games take forever!) among other things. When I was in young, I was in awe of the pageantry and tradition of the whole thing; now, I realize it’s often a way for rich boosters to relive their college years. I got tired of sitting either near obnoxious drunks or just obnoxious, cursing loudmouths who probably had never played 5 minutes of sports but, by God, knew everything there is to know about effing football and what idiots the coach, players, and just about everybody else is. Then the post game which usually involved watching drunks stagger around the parking lot and through the town. Not my idea of fun…

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  40. MichaelG said on September 28, 2013 at 3:31 pm

    Deborah, I started at U of I in the fall of ’62 and left at the end of the fall semester in ’65. I joined the army in Jan ’66. Later I finished and got my degree at SF State. So it appears that your husband and I were at Champaign at the same time.

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  41. Jolene said on September 28, 2013 at 4:12 pm

    At the very small high schooling attended, the only organized sport was boys’ basketball. Our home games were played in a small gym, andthe audience was largely made up of parents and teen-age girls.

    When I went to my first collegiate hockey game at the University of North Dakota, I was stunned by the amount of noise generated by the spectators. Now, UND has, perhaps, the premier collegiate hockey facility in the US, but, at the time, hockey was played in what was essentially an unheated barn with bleachers. Many of the spectators were fraternity brothers who fortified themselves against the cold with large quantities of alcohol.

    I don’t know that it helped to keep them warm, but it certainly inspired them to astonishing displays of school spirit. To my inexperienced ears, the sound of so many loud, deep voices was astonishing.

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  42. Jolene said on September 28, 2013 at 4:14 pm

    Oh, dear. Two uses of astonishing in one paragraph. I’m so embarrassed.

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  43. MarkH said on September 28, 2013 at 4:43 pm

    Deborah —

    NYC is Prospy/Dr. Wu’ s favorite city, but I don’t suggest you go there.

    http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/09/27/upper-manhattan-residents-say-skunks-are-stinking-up-neighborhood/

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  44. Prospero said on September 28, 2013 at 5:34 pm

    Boston is far and away my favorite American city. For the whole wide world, it’s Bern.

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  45. Prospero said on September 28, 2013 at 5:36 pm

    Anybody that doesn’t understand what is special about NYC has some sort of psychological problem.

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  46. Bob (not Greene) said on September 28, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    And yet you understand that. Remarkable.

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  47. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 28, 2013 at 9:14 pm

    Chicago, my kind of town.

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  48. Deborah said on September 28, 2013 at 9:58 pm

    Mark H, Hilarious about NYC and skunks. I keep saying I’m a city person who lives in a High-rise in Chicago and am not used to this. I guess I need to shut up about that. My husband has a theory that skunks invading urban areas has to do with global warming. Who knows? I did hear that many of the bears that have been captured in Santa Fe recently and relocated have been found in some of the more “urban” areas. I used quotation marks because “urban” Santa Fe is a far cry from urban Chicago.

    Sherri, I hear you, I will never do another electrical project without a voltmeter. Especially after finding out all the different light fixtures/outlets that were nowhere near the bathroom that were effected by the bathroom circuit breaker. Scary.

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  49. Jolene said on September 28, 2013 at 10:50 pm

    A voltmeter is definitely a good idea, but, even taking that safety violation into account, I am, like Kaye, impressed with your willingness to take on this renovation without previous experience or much in the way of technical assistance.

    Have you been filming your progress? Would be cool to somehow show how you learned from YouTube videos in a video of your own. You’d be an Internet sensation!

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  50. Dexter said on September 29, 2013 at 2:04 am

    I worked in a medium-sized factory for over thirty years. I kept hearing stories of how shortly before I had begun my employment, an electrician had been fried to death when he got tangled up in some very hot wires. I told my dad this story and he informed me the dead man was my cousin’s cousin…I guess not directly related to me. Also, I saw an electrician blown completely out of a Genie-Lift (hydraulic work platform)and crash to the floor, suffering not only electrical burns but a broken arm + shoulder. It was like nothing I ever saw in Vietnam, I’ll say that.

    Sherri, I hear ya about the far-away seating at the Final Four arenas. When I used to go every year back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was easy to move around and then find a seat close to courtside. I pulled this trick twice at The Spectrum in Philly, once in Atlanta’s The Omni, and once at the old St. Louis Checkerdome. That was 1978, when Jack Givens hung 41 on Duke and won the championship. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=user7UhAjg4&oq=jack%20givens%20&gs_l=youtube..0.5.1644.6895.0.8521.12.11.0.1.1.0.128.963.8j3.11.0.eytns%2Cpt%3D-40%2Cn%3D2%2Cui%3Dt.1.0.0…1ac.1.11.youtube.ht2BYVWHrCY

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  51. Deborah said on September 29, 2013 at 3:01 am

    Dexter the hockey games I used to go to in St. Louis were in the Checkerdome, and then the new arena that got built by one of the Walmart heirs as I recall.

    Jolene, I don’t think I would have had the guts to do any of the renovation had I not had the Beaver Brook experience. Holy cow, that was already a month ago. And I definitely need help hooking the sink up to the drain, our friend came over yesterday to check everything out, I have to get a couple of things that he suggested at a plumbing supply place near here then he’ll come over Monday after he’s off work and it will be done! I can handle hooking the faucet up to the hot and cold water spigots. And if there are any leaks when we’re done I’ll call a plumber, but I’m pretty confident it will be OK.

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  52. Holly said on September 29, 2013 at 10:55 am

    My husband graduated from U of I in 1980. Now and then we have to go to a game. I hate it. He acts like such an idiot when we go. He ends up slipping back to his younger days when he went to Illinois. A 54 year old man acting like a 19 year old can make you want to clock him over the head. I am sure the beer has something to do with it. I wont go to a game when Illinois plays Michigan because I know my husbands mouth will get him in trouble.

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  53. basset said on September 29, 2013 at 11:14 am

    Pros, I understand perfectly well what is “special” about NYC, that’s why I don’t want any part of it. My favorite US cities are probably Nashville and Portland, Oregon, with Anchorage and Traverse City pretty close… always enjoy going to Chicago, San Antonio, and DC… never gonna return to Atlanta or Houston if I can help it though.

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  54. Suzanne said on September 29, 2013 at 11:56 am

    For what it’s worth, I love NYC. The first time I went, I was overwhelmed and in shock, but I’ve returned and love it. It’s worth a trip just to see the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park.

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  55. Dexter said on September 29, 2013 at 1:34 pm

    Holly: LMFAO!!!! Ha HA!

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  56. Dexter said on September 29, 2013 at 1:49 pm

    Houston , Texas, is the only big US city I have never been to that I have no curiosity about, and I have no desire to ever go to. I remember stories about Houston in the early 1960s, where it was rumored that Houston Colt .45s (the new baseball team then) second baseman Joe Morgan, a little guy, was carried off into the parking lot by the giant swarming mosquitoes. 🙂
    ~

    Tim Russert used to say “If you agree to be somewhere for someone, act like you want to be there.”
    In baseball, no one epitomizes this attitude like Hunter Pence of the San Francisco Giants. This guy played so hard this past season that the Giants rewarded him with a $90 million contract over five years. This guy is a joy to watch play, able to lead his Giants team in home runs, but more importantly it’s his attitude, so humbly playing so hard, running out every hit ball, encouraging everyone on his team, playing all-out even when behind by 12 runs. A real feel-good story.
    Oh…he rides a scooter from home to the ballpark.
    http://coedbc.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hunter-pence-savanna-sweetland-4.png

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  57. Prospero said on September 29, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    Houston and Atlanta are practically the same place, with horrible airports and vast stretches of sprawl and strip malls. It seems to me that people that dismiss NYC out of hand, for no good reason, are cutting off their own noses to spite their faces and succumbing to a peculiar manifestation of misanthropy. My first couple of college years in Worcester gave me and friends the run of NYC, and damn was that fun. A perfect example of the sort of thing that happens in the City is the night we had dinner at the great One Fifth restaurant, rolled out to the street, walked into the Village Gate, and realized Nina Simone was playing the club. She was playing the piano intro to her arrangement of Lady Day’s Strange Fruit. Now that is an awe-inspiring happenstance, that will not occur anywhere else.

    Hunter Pence is a superb ballplayer, but the Jints should probably talk him off that scooter. Scooter accidents are a very common occurrence in CFB, where most of the kids don’t have cars on campus, much less Black Trans-Ams like Herschel’s, which his decidedly middle class parents bought for him. Aaron Murray had a scooter spill last summer, and Bulldawg Nation hyperventilated. And when LSU went ahead with almost 3 minutes left yesterday, I knew Georgia would score again.

    The maintenance crew that cleans up Sanford Stadium after UGA ballgames says their biggest headache is duct tape trampled into walking surfaces. Flasks taped to tri-Delt thighs where no security guard will venture.

    Deborah@51: Compression fittings are an example of mankind’s inventive abilities. Sure beats sweating joints, although making good solder joints is a very satisfying skill to master. But under a kitchen or bathroom sink, the fire risk is something I can do well without.

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  58. Deborah said on September 29, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    We decided that a good beverage to enjoy while watching the grand finale of Breaking Bad would be bloody Marys, so we went out and got the ingredients. Can’t wait to find out what happens. My guess is Walter kills Lydia, Todd and his uncle, cousin etc, but saves Jesse. I think the ricin is for Walter to off himself after he hands himself over to Skyler so she can turn him in and get a plea bargain. Then Skyler and the kids go into witness protection. I haven’t any idea what happens to Jesse. I’m probably dead wrong. I will be majorly depressed if any babies get killed

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  59. brian stouder said on September 29, 2013 at 3:22 pm

    speaking of breaking bad, here is something I just tripped across

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24304245

    So as the 150th anniversary of a speech that ‘the world will little note, nor long remember’, the Ku Klux Klan has the right to conduct a rally on the battlefield at Gettysburg.

    I’m a free speech guy, really.

    But this is an obscenity

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  60. Prospero said on September 29, 2013 at 3:43 pm

    Irony killed dead. Guess who tweeted this

    Whiny columnists who sit on Twitter taking endless pot shots, then publicy self-victimize the minute someone says something critical of them.

    Glenn Greenwald, unless somebody is just making fun of the weasel. If it’s actually Greenie, he shows a monster talent for being unconscious of his ownself.

    Isn’t Chloe Grace Moretz too young to play Carrie? And why did anybody think the Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie version needed a reboot? Admittedly, the director of Boys Don’t Cry is an intriguing fit for a Carrie remake, but it seems like a waste of time to do another version of one Steven King work that was done to perfection already. It so rarely happens that King’s fiction is done right by moving to video formats. The TV version of The Stand was good. Jamie Sheridan was monstrous as Randall Flagg, and Matt Frewer was astounding as Trashcan Man. Gary Sinise, pull the broomstick out of his arsehole, God he is a terrible actor. Laura San Giacomo was excellent.

    Walter White will not kill himself. I expect Psycho Todd to get his lunch, and I sure hope Jesse gets to do him in. I’d kinda like to see Walt get to kill that weasel Ted, too. Jr. has got to be disabused of the notion that Dad killed Uncle Hank, who deserved to die the way Ahab deserved to die, killed by his nutso obsession.. Marie should eat worms and die. Obnoxious holier than thou jerk. Here’s a perfect Breaking Bad drink:

    http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=34 (pretty disgusting tasting, but it’s blue like Walt’s meth.

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  61. Prospero said on September 29, 2013 at 4:58 pm

    I also hope Walt gets some measure of revenge on snivelling yuppies Eliot and Gretchen, aned on the perfidious Skyler. Swriously? Ted? What a pitiful skeevy bastard.

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  62. alex said on September 29, 2013 at 6:05 pm

    Brian, when I consider the wasted resources — police in riot gear, etc. — I’d like to know where are those anti-taxation fanatics who should be considering these folks’ speech anything but free. If I ran the Park Service I’d tell the Klan go right ahead, exercise your free speech rights without the backup of a police presence and take your chances with other people expressing their free speech rights. Guarantee those cowards wouldn’t even show up.

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  63. Deborah said on September 29, 2013 at 6:41 pm

    I actually have always been on Skyler’s side, I mean Walt was/is a monster. She’s not been blameless but the character is a strong woman. I hope she gets out alive.

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  64. beb said on September 29, 2013 at 7:07 pm

    I don’t watch BB those m guesses for tonight is totally content free. Jessie does the one thing Walter never did — IE, blow up the lab (with him and the nazi in it). Walt turns himself in so no one can take credit for his work.

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  65. brian stouder said on September 29, 2013 at 7:50 pm

    Alex – hear, hear!

    And a local story, which some are using as a political/racial stalking horse, and which has our household’s undivided attention, is this one:

    http://www.wane.com/sports/high-school/fight-halts-south-side-indy-tech-game

    The lead:

    INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WANE) – A high school football game was called Friday night after a large fight broke out between Fort Wayne South Side and Arsenal Tech of Indianapolis. The incident happened during the third quarter after a South Side player tackled an Arsenal Tech player on what appeared to be a late hit. Both teams left their benches.

    Moments later, another fight broke out between two adults.

    Some fans also jumped onto the field during the fight.

    There is a video attached, which is hard (for me) to decipher, given that the teams both use the same colors (green and white) – but suffice it to say I think that Fort Wayne South Side really did nothing to initiate this brawl, nor to intensify it; and the adults connected with the other school seem (to me) to have worsened it.

    Regardless, the story has hit national news, and it will be a major talker on Monday.

    I will say this much, though. Wednesday of last week, we had an “Inside the Ivy” meeting at South Side with Mr Mable, the principal. A dozen-plus parents and the principal do these once a month, and review what’s happening (statistical review of attendance/tardy, test scores and ECA updates, new programs, and issues or concerns, and any questions. It is an altogether priceless opportunity for parents to become invested in their student’s school, and to feel the pulse and rhythm of the institution. I find that it always provides me an indispensably important understanding of what is happening at South Side High School.

    And at that meeting, right at the end, I joked with Mr Mable about the upcoming game – and he immediately said he was not looking forward to the long ride down there (to Indianapolis), and then the long drive back, after a long day at school. He also indicated that they (the administration and downtown) were looking to see if they couldn’t get Homestead and some of the other larger area schools into our athletic conference, and do away with these end-of-the-week marathons.

    And then I heard this news, and (on one level, anyway) I understood just how prescient and aware the principal was. (he can be seen in the video, I think, busily pulling kids away from one another. He looks a bit like CeeLo Green, I think)

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  66. Dexter said on September 29, 2013 at 7:54 pm

    Todd must die, Flynn must live. Other than that, who knows? I sort of think Gilligan won’t let Walt survive like Dexter did, a whole continent away, stewing. Saul will make it, Jesse’s fate is a mystery like none other. Skyler probably waltzes away somehow but Marie will likely go nuts some way or another.

    I will miss Skinny Pete and Badger most of all! 🙂

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  67. Jolene said on September 29, 2013 at 8:22 pm

    Love these Breaking Bad speculations. Am really curious to see what they’ll do.

    I don’t get the antipathy toward Skyler. First, Anna Gunn is so gorgeous that I’d think the character would benefit from the favorable responses that the more attractive members of the species tend to evoke. Second, her morally ambiguous protection of Walt as a way of protecting her family seems entirely understandable, if not admirable.

    Really, all these characters are impressive feats of screenwriting and acting. I don’t think it will be too long before I watch the whole series again. There are certain moments when the actors’ expressions were so perfect that I want to see them again. Then, too, I find that I sometimes forget certain things. Just recently, I watched the very first episode again because I couldn’t remember how it was exactly that Walt and Jesse got connected.

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  68. Jolene said on September 29, 2013 at 8:28 pm

    Another thing: Breaking Bad is not only highly creative in itself, but it has inspired the creativity of lots of people who have nothing to do with the show. Here’s a whole set of BB posters that were published recently.

    http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/09/francavilla-breaking-bad-posters/

    Have also seen some great drawings of WW. Will see if I can retrieve some of those links.

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  69. Jolene said on September 29, 2013 at 8:59 pm

    Here’s one set of drawings. This artist makes videos about drawing, so you see both the completed drawing and the process of making it.
    http://alizarine.typepad.com/weblog/2013/09/walter-white-and-jesse-pinkman.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Alizarine+%28Alizarine%29

    Another great drawing. You see it appear in a time-lapse video as the artist creates it.
    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EqMmutIF4oM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DEqMmutIF4oM

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  70. brian stouder said on September 29, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    I’ve never seen more than 20 minutes of Breaking Bad in my life, up ’til tonight – when I watched about 40 minutes, plus about 10 minutes of the post-show.

    The theme seemed to be, no loose ends and no cliff-hangers; a finale that finishes things. Good on them.

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  71. Deborah said on September 29, 2013 at 11:55 pm

    It couldn’t have ended better. The bit with Elliot and Gretchen as the means to get money to Walter’s kids was brilliant. As soon as the shot where Lydia stirred her tea after putting Stevia in it, I suspected she got the ricin, and sure enough. That Walter gave Jesse the option of killing him was brilliant too. Walter dying on the lab floor with the cops approaching was sad.

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  72. Deborah said on September 30, 2013 at 12:06 am

    Jolene, I agree, going back and watching episodes from earlier seasons is entertaining and informative. I maintain that the best episode of all was the pilot when it all began, very funny. I better quit commenting, I’ve had too many Bloody Marys.

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  73. Sherri said on September 30, 2013 at 12:44 am

    The NYTimes looks at accidental gun deaths of children: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?hp

    One thing stood out to me: who on earth gives a three year old a .22 rifle for Christmas?

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  74. Dexter said on September 30, 2013 at 1:54 am

    I loved Todd’s ringtone for Lydia. Catch it? Groucho Marx! Nice touch having the post-show wrap-up at the Hollywood cemetery, with the Heisenberg graffiti on the limestone.
    I enjoyed seeing Jesse choking Todd out, and that perfect SNAP of the neck was fitting. After Todd blasted Andrea’s head off last week, I figured Jesse was gonna get him.
    The machine gun in Walt’s trunk surprised the hell out of me. My wife had been watching a different show in another room but just as the trunk opened she tapped my shoulder and asked what I was watching! Damn, woman ! Freaked me the hell out. 🙂
    That scumbag Elliot and his little knife…had to love the tribute to Crocodile Dundee , paraphrasing the “that’s naught a knife, mate…THIS is a knife!”
    So anyway, as one who has faithfully seen all 62 episodes first run on my TVs, bon voyage Walt and Skyler, Jesse and Mike, Saul and Tuco…bye bye. http://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/e1/pd/196217268/196217268_24569929001_AMC-InsideBreakingBad-Season2-TheTortoiseScene.jpg?pubId=196217268

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  75. coozledad said on September 30, 2013 at 8:35 am

    Good. Holder’s about to give a bunch of drooling cracker trash a primer on the law. When he’s a supreme court justice, maybe the US will reimplement Reconstruction.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/justice-department-will-sue-north-carolina-for-racial-discrimination-in-voter-id-law

    Even with gerrymandering, Republicans have shown their petulant hick asses so badly they went from a lock to ‘about to lose the NC state senate”. Then Pat McCrory can go drink his own dick.

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  76. Minnie said on September 30, 2013 at 8:42 am

    Thanks for the bit of good news this Monday morning, Coozledad.

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  77. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 30, 2013 at 8:58 am

    The shutdown and impending default/debt ceiling crises are, at heart, imprudent. They are steps being taken under the justification that it is to prevent or forestall an even more imprudent act (the ACA, aka “Obamacare”), but given the legal and political steps to date, it would be more prudent to let the legislation take effect and prepare vigorously to identify as they occur the harms and impacts of that which they have opposed, and to propose clear solutions that make sense to citizens in the wake of these events. I am actually somewhat in favor of “gridlock” in Congress, but this is a reckless step beyond mere legislative inactivity; it also establishes a precedent for monkey-wrenching as a tool of minority opposition that could haunt them later. Stand down, I would suggest, and stand by.

    From http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/ten-conservative-principles/:

    Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.

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  78. Prospero said on September 30, 2013 at 10:03 am

    Jolene@67: Adultery when your husband is dying, taken to the point of ruination in giving the idiot weasel co-respondent $620grand to raise IRS suspicions, was pretty reprehensible on Skyler’s part. Insult to injury sthat Ted was such an ineffectual wuss as well as an incompetent criminal.

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  79. coozledad said on September 30, 2013 at 10:56 am

    This is why they’re shutting down the government. Republicans hate success stories that don’t involve blowing someone’s crank for a couple thousand bucks, the inherent virtues of white Calvinists, or the perfect crystalline structure of a skimming operation.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/poll-most-uninsured-will-get-health-insurance-under-obamacare

    Obamacare is going to work, and there’s going to be a diaspora of Republican creeps from DC.

    They’re headed home folks. Lock up your children and pets.

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  80. alex said on September 30, 2013 at 11:05 am

    Jeff, it would be a mistake to refer to those people as conservatives. They are anarchists.

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  81. Sherri said on September 30, 2013 at 11:06 am

    The Republicans want to blow up the government and start over, because they’re losing under the current structure. It’s a non-violent coup; they want to rewrite the rules. They don’t really care whether the people support them. They know what’s best. The problem is, in their delusional thinking, that the wrong sort of elites have taken control, and instead, they should be the elites in control.

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  82. Prospero said on September 30, 2013 at 11:08 am

    Ballet in NYC. Beautiful.

    Things Japanese people do to the English language are endlessly amusing. Check the second name down of this department store sign. WTF?

    The small gubmint Teabangers are riding roughshod over all three branches of American government and a pretty clear mandate at the 2012 Presidential polls. How do they fool their base so regularly with such transparent bullshit? Because Obama. And every time one of the bastards starts in on polls about PPACA unpopularity, I want to beat them over the head with a sign that says, “You assholes don’t get to count the folks for whom nothing short of single payer is good enough. If GOPers had proposed anything at all but the miserable, eidiculously expensive status quo, perhaps they’d have a leg to stand on, but all these aholes can offer is “Because Obama.” You would think a message might have gotten through when Obamacare skated by a Supreme Court packed with trogloconservative activists. But no, Because Obama.

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  83. Prospero said on September 30, 2013 at 11:11 am

    Sherri@81: It’s not so non-violent for all of those kids and elders and families of active duty service members who are having SNAP food aid yanked out from under them by the GOPers in order to make sure they get their farm subsidy checks. People will starve in the USA. Exceptional Third Worldism, brought to America by the GOP.

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  84. Julie said on September 30, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    Brian @ 65
    I have watched the SS-Tech video many times and here is what I see. SS coaches and players never should have come across the field, it made a yelling/pushing event into something much bigger. The guy in the green shirt who is pushing and shoving SS players is a Tech asst coach. He has been dimissed, according to Tech head coach. The big guy in the black shirt is a SS asst and he starts the worst of it by shoving the Tech asst. The Tech asst retaliates with a punch then a SS player runs in and delivers a sucker punch to the Tech asst.
    The vast majority of SS coaches and players did nothing, but unfortunately this incident will be one reason Homestead and Carroll do not join the conference.

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