After game 4 of the Pacers/Heat, I was expecting a down-to-the-wire affair in Miami last night. But, even with almost no contributions from Wade and Bosh, Miami blew the Pacers off the floor in the second half (after controlling the first half). I don't see any way that the Pacers can win now. BTW, with Cleveland having Kyrie Irving and the #1 pick, it's not inconceivable that LBJ goes back to Cleveland. Wade is clearly on the downswing and Bosh is not all that.
Miami's second-half defense in the paint was fantastic. Outside of Paul George, Indiana had nothing outside last night. George Hill was AWOL, Lance Stephenson was Lance Stephenson.
Sam Young was less useful than Manute Bol on offense. And DJ Augustin played like he should have been drafted by Kahn.
What's wrong with Manute Bol's offense?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSfBRAIT4eg
awesome
Is this the end of LeBron's contract? That would be a pretty funny end to this.
After next year.
Choker:
Most 30-5-5 Playoff Games
In The Past 25 Seasons
Michael Jordan 46
LeBron James 42< <
Kobe Bryant 37
>>30-8-6 in Game 5 Thursday
All that with his hands around his own neck?
he's got big hands. Only needs one to choke himself.
[full metal jacket .mov]
I don't know if I need a Twayn signal yet, or not, but my wife called me yesterday saying her oil light was turning on and off while she was driving. She claims the level was fine, though they checked it right after stopping. (I had to put some in this morning, so she could drive in in the case of emergency.) I plan to change the oil tonight, since its well due. Otherwise, I'm hoping its the oil pressure switch, which I'm learning is near impossible to get to without removing half the body of the car. (Chrysler and Mercedes engineers can go straight to hell.)
Anyway, if its not either of those two things, then I'm none too excited about how much it might cost. Cars, man.
In related news, my 2003 Camry has intermittent ignition problems. The battery is fine, but sometimes when I turn the key, nothing happens. That is, the engine does not turn over -- zero sound, not even a click -- although the electronics on the dash light up. I can turn the key a dozen or more times with "nothing." Eventually, on one of those turns, the car starts normally (normal turnover).
I'm beginning to think that maybe I need to do something about this before I get stranded somewhere.
Sounds like a starter problem if I've ever heard one. Good thing it isn't German engineered, so it should be reasonably easy to do if your shoulder works.
Second the assessment. Sounds like a bad spot on the starter.
They're not the hardest thing to replace, if you're up for it. I recommend having your dad come teach you how. That made it easier.
I believe if you get stuck, sometimes you can rock the vehicle and move the starter forward to a spot that will work.
thanks, both of youse. Now I'm trying to decide whether we take my car on our fancy Napa weekend, or hers (which has an intermittent issue with rear break lights and turn signals -- a Recall issue which she has steadfastly refused to take a day off to address, since the nearest dealer is a ways away from us).
#rattlethembones
If your car breaks down at some nice Napa gig - oh my. We'll have to spend the night.
Take the car out of park and put it back again? Pressed the brake?
it's a standard. I take it out of reverse and into neutral for a few tries, then back into reverse, but these are just placebo actions, I think.
In related related news: My 2003 Sable has sizable... let's call them "hiccups" occasionally when driving. The car jerks pretty hard (like forward/backward, not side-to-side) Usually feel them at higher speeds (>50), though sometimes smaller ones while getting up to speed. Mechanic says he felt 'em, but absolutely nothing reads on the sensors. He did replace some stabilizers that needed it greatly, and the hiccups don't feel as large now, but they're certainly still present. Feels like the engine is having a little seizure... but it's really inconsistent, so we're not talking like every time through a rotation or anything...
Anyone?
I get the same thing from time to time. Bad gas?
I think I'd start with injector cleaner and check the spark plugs. Those would be the easy places to start, anyway.
Might as well start at the easy places, right? Thanks.
My car did that once and it was the O2 sensor that'd gone bad and the injectors couldn't figure out how much fuel to inject. Though I think that'd turn up on the scan.
It's the not turning up on the scan thing that has me concerned.
My related news is that the speedometer cable in '95 Escort needs to be replaced. I wish I were mechanically inclined enough to trust myself to disassemble the dash to get at it. I'm glad I know what the issue is, but I'm assuming the labor charges will be outrageous.
Happy Friday, everyone
I prefer the one with what appears to be a bottle of some variety of beer.
but what kind of beer?
(paging NCIS crew)
It looks to say Stone at the top, but its a glued on label so it isn't The Stone.
looks like "Stout" on the top of the label. I was gonna opine "Stone" but I don't see their logo, which typically is above the word "Stone". (or "Stone" is printed on the neck of longneck 12s)
Geez, this was apparently a variation on the CSI baseball card "identify the play" series, I guess. Which reminds me, I need to put another one of those together sometime.
nice work, cheaps!
Is that fully functional?
Last night, my wife went out with some friends.
My wife, God love her, cannot get my daughter to go to bed. As a result, when I get home from a ND trip, we have a crabby, sleep deprived little girl who can't behave the way she should. She had soccer on Wednesday night, which was not fun because she was tired and not engaged in the whole thing. I got her to bed at 7:45 Wednesday night. Last night, she was tired again and it was skating. She loves skating so much that even if she's tired, she does well.
We got home at 7:30. She got a quick bath and a popsicle. She was given a choice: go to bed or watch baseball with Dad. She chose the latter. She ate her popsicle and I told her, now lay down next to me on the couch. Not two minutes later, she was sound asleep. Eleven hours later, she awoke with the brilliant smile and demeanor that she has when she's not overtired. I pointed this out to my wife for the millionth time: when she's not tired, she behaves. You have to be firm and tell her to go to sleep, because she will if you do that. She won't listen to reason when she's tired. She will do what you want willingly when she's not tired. It seems to me to be a no-brainer.
I pointed this out to my wife for the millionth time
This strategy always works for me too.
That's a point.
Point it out, not point it out. Both similarly effective!
Similar effectiveness, vastly different consequences.
There's a fine line between clever and stupid, isn't there?
+11
Gardy always pronounces Ryan Doumit's name "DO-mitt". Maybe it's no big deal, but I'd be upset if I'd been on the team a year and a half and the manager still didn't know how to pronounce my name.
There's a decent chance he does know and mispronounces it as a display of affection. I do that with a few coworkers of mine. For instance, I'll call Kate, Kathryn, even though her real name is Katie. Or I'll butcher last names on purpose.
But to your point, though, I think getting someone's name right is a pretty necessary form of respect if you don't already have a more intimate relationship. Whenever I hear someone excuse themselves from getting a name right because it's too hard to pronounce, I want to slap them.
At the nursing home, I had to beat into the staff over and over and over again that you don't call residents 'honey', 'sweetie' or 'dear,' lest we get fined from the state. When they'd ask what to do instead, I suggested actually calling them by their names.
I had a friend in college that would call every guy he knew "Skippy." That quickly became his nickname. I also used to work with a guy that would call everyone "buddy" or some other friendly nickname. He was in sales and customer service and I think he was afraid of calling people by the wrong name. I think some people just have a very difficult time remembering names. For some it is a matter of "don't care" but I think there are many that just have a very difficult time putting names with faces.
Which is fine if it's someone you only see once a month. But if you work someone for several hours a day, every single day, I think you need to figure out some way to help your memory.
I am one of those people. Absolutely awful with names. My agency has maybe 140 people in it, and I interact semi-regularly with about 30 outside of the group that I supervise. And damned if I know half their names.
I've been campaigning for a "zoo book" for internal use in the agency for years, to no avail (it would be trivially easy to produce, since we already have agency-produced picture ID cards).
this is a worse issue for me when I deal with legislative staff or other agencies' folks. It is Bad to forget a poobah's name.
A trick - when you meet someone, try to use their name in the next sentence that you speak to them.
I suppose that you could buy the premise that talking to Joe Mauer is not going to get you much, but it might just be that the author is really not going to get much from Joe. After all, he's talked to trainers that have never heard of a stress reaction, which come to think of it, is completely believable if he talked to the Twins training staff.
Was there a point in that column? Because if there was, I'm missing it. I suppose Souhan would be happier if Terry Ryan had to bail Joe out of jail at 4am a week before the playoffs, but I'm a fan of the current state of affairs.
.
. J. Jonah Jamison: "Souhan!! Get me a column about Mauer!" Jim Souhan: "Are you kidding? He won't talk to me -- he doesn't say anything to anyone." J. Jonah Jamison: "I don't care! Talk to his paper boy! Talk to his kindergarten teacher! We need something!" Jim Souhan: "Well, okay..."
I loved the story of the little league game that tied with absolutely nothing else in the article. I kept waiting for it to bring it back to some character trait of Joe's or really just lend any sort of credence to the very, very skeletal point of the article, but... nope.
Oh, so... they played little league with some people that we've heard of one time? Huh.
A column dropping as many names as possible?
Good to see Sid is rubbing off on him.
Last night at about 10pm we saw "lightning" and heard "thunder" simultaneously. We jump out of bed and look out the window and see clear skies. We get on the phone to the next-door neighbors. They have called 911 – their 20-year-old daughter saw someone with a large weapon in the backyard neighbor's house. The next-door neighbors had gathered their 3 kids and went to the basement, blocking the bedroom door with a chest of drawers.
My wife called the police to ask what was going on. "What you saw/heard was a flash bang device. Everything is under control. Though there should be no danger, stay in your house. The police are there and have it under control."
The rumor mill is churning. It's pretty clear this was a drug bust. Now we're in a state of concern over the 3 children that live there (with a dad, girlfriend and grandmother). The fact that we only realized there were 2 children and a grandmother certainly says something. The rumor mill also states that these kids are "high risk/bad behavior." Poor, poor kids.
It took me a long time to get to sleep. I'm not really prepared for an intruder. I've generally been the naive "it won't happen to me" guy. I'm somewhat rethinking that policy. On the other hand, there were not any intruders in our neighborhood and it's a little odd that this would cause a change of heart in me.
Yikes. Sorry to hear that.
not to get too far into the Forbidden Zone, but IMO, nobody (short of a professional law enforcement official, or MAYBE some recent veterans) is ever "prepared" to deal with an intruder. Beyond securing your downstairs doors and windows against trivial entry, I think the cost-benefit leans against doing much else. Unless, of course, you live in a high-crime area with frequent break-ins. YMMV.
We had someone step into our window in Washington, near the end of our time there. None of us recovered from it mentally for some time, despite the fact that I felt pretty confident that it was a guy from a few doors down who was moving out and just wanted to snag my PS3 before he left.
About 5 years ago my dad was jumped walking down the street in our home town. 3 guys beat him up and took the cash from his wallet, but it was really just about the beating. He was the 3rd or 4th person they attacked, and his was by far the most brutal. He spent a week in the hospital, needed his jaw rebuilt, couldn't eat solids for months... the doctors said it looked like he'd been hit with a bat several times.
There's a ton more to say about it, but relevant to this conversation: I still look over my shoulder constantly when I'm walking.
One night when I was 14 or 15 I was getting a ride home from some friends when a couple of 20-something redneck pieces of shit started shit with us because they said we flipped them off. They got out of their car to confront us at a stop light, my friend sped away. They chased us and forced my friend to pull off the road a mile or two away, near his house.
They started kicking at the windows on his mom's pickup, telling us to get out and fight them. I'll probably never forget the guy's boot hitting the window next to me saying "c'mon motherfucker!" over and over. Eventually they realized they weren't getting into the car, so they got back into their truck, and pulled into the trailer court just up the road.
We drove past them trying to get back to my friend's house, and saw one guy running into the trailer while the other guy was waiting behind the wheel for him to come out. We sped off, pulled into my friend's garage, and called the cops. We peeked out the window and saw them driving through the neighborhood looking for his car. I could barely function I was so scared. Ever since then I get really tense when someone drives by me walking at night.
When the cops showed up they accused us of making the whole thing up to cover up doing something to ruin his mom's truck, despite us giving them a license plate number and a description of the vehicle. He said he was a cop in Detroit, and things like that never happened in Detroit so he knew they wouldn't happen in Fargo. Coincidentally, I also gained a distrust for the police that night.
fun times.
My only brush with this kind of crap came in high school in Spamtown. I and three of my buddies (ranging from 6'0"/190 to 6'6"/200 to 6'3"/230) were cruising around and some dumb ass decided that the driver of our car had "cut him off" and started chasing us. We pulled over in front of my house. The dumb ass and his partner in stupidity came over to us; we piled out. Partner in stupidity, looking up at us, decided that maybe getting in a 2-on-4 fight with much bigger guys wasn't such a good idea and managed to pull dumb ass away before I started beating on him.
I haven't been in anything resembling a fight since jr. high. That was the closest I've been to one. Simpler times in a simpler place, where nobody seemed to even think about the possibility of weapons being drawn.
I hung out for a while in P.R. in middle school with the Sharps Bros. They were smallish folk, but were good fighters. Key thing was to punch, not wrestle. No one likes getting punched in the face.
Wow. I cannot believe the cops couldn't tell for your demeanor that something was up. Or couldn't tell that the damage was from something ... unusual.
Well, what we found out later was the cop who responded to our call was friends with one of the punk's dad. So when we gave the vehicle description, license plate, etc. he knew who we were talking about. My friend's dad lived apart from the family, and when he came home he went to the Fargo PD to fight it. They eventually opened up an IA investigation, I had to go in to identify the guys, etc. I can't remember if the cop had left before then or if he got fired or what. But I mean, I was glad they acknowledged something wrong went down.
We had a break-in in the neighborhood last summer. Kind of freaked me out - I don't own a weapon or such, not sure I would want one in the house. But I do have my cricket bat in my bedroom closet now.
The thing is I have a couple bats in the bedroom. Kirby Puckett bat-day bats in fact. And I didn't know where I had placed them. No more.
I forgot I do have a weapon in my car - for Xmas last year I bought NBBW and myself 'prepper/rescue' knives. They were designed by a NYC cop as a kind of rescue knife - honking big ragged blade with a side hook blade that can be used to cut through a seat belt. Also has a springy bolt thing to break through car glass (like if you drove into a river, etc). It also has a tiny LED light that can be used to check someone's pupils.
I keep my hurley and my Ka-Bar on my side of the bed.
My dog is stubborn and kind of a jerk some of the time(most of the time), but he's 200 pounds and has an alligator mouth. So he has potential deterrent to home invaders going in his favor. Much better than lethal weaponry I'd think.
Our previous neighbors to the rear had this monstrous scary dog (I think a Rottweiler). It had the most badass guttural growl - I thought about taping it's growl and using it as some kind of home security tape (i.e. window breaks, tape recorder of this goes off). Never completed that project...
This entire thread makes me happy (again) that I live where I do.
Bud Grant comes in at #15 in the espn's Greatest Coaches in NFL History.
I'd be curious to see if any one else < #15 who doesn't have a ring.
there have been 29 different coaches to win one or more Super Bowl. Dungy, Shanahan and Stram were in the 20-16 range. Coughlin, Johnson and Madden were 14, 13, and 12, respectively. That leaves 23.
I'd be surprised if their top-20 list includes more than coaches from the pre-SB era (Halas, Curly Lambeau).
The obvious ones from the "modern" era include Lombardi, Noll, Walsh, Belichik, Landry and Shula, plus Paul Brown. For the other three spots, I might favor Parcells, Gibbs, and Marv Levy. But I have a soft spot for Don Coryell, George Allen and Sid Gillman.
.
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new Twins player autographed baseball card acquisition alert: Jim Kaat and Latroy Hawkins
Baseball attendance is down 2.9% over last year. Some of that is due to the horrendous weather at the beginning of the year. Some - 40% - is the Marlins all by their lonesome.1 "Last year, the Marlins sold an average of 27,000 tickets per game, but this year that number is down to 17,893."2
Quick math says 40% of 2.9% is 1.16%. It's crazy that one team can drag down the league average like that.
Stupid Angels win again. Still a half-game above the Twins.
Uni-watch looked at last night's unis, too.
Thanks!
After game 4 of the Pacers/Heat, I was expecting a down-to-the-wire affair in Miami last night. But, even with almost no contributions from Wade and Bosh, Miami blew the Pacers off the floor in the second half (after controlling the first half). I don't see any way that the Pacers can win now. BTW, with Cleveland having Kyrie Irving and the #1 pick, it's not inconceivable that LBJ goes back to Cleveland. Wade is clearly on the downswing and Bosh is not all that.
Miami's second-half defense in the paint was fantastic. Outside of Paul George, Indiana had nothing outside last night. George Hill was AWOL, Lance Stephenson was Lance Stephenson.
Sam Young was less useful than Manute Bol on offense. And DJ Augustin played like he should have been drafted by Kahn.
What's wrong with Manute Bol's offense?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSfBRAIT4eg
awesome
Is this the end of LeBron's contract? That would be a pretty funny end to this.
After next year.
Choker:
Most 30-5-5 Playoff Games
In The Past 25 Seasons
Michael Jordan 46
LeBron James 42< < Kobe Bryant 37 >>30-8-6 in Game 5 Thursday
All that with his hands around his own neck?
he's got big hands. Only needs one to choke himself.
[full metal jacket .mov]
I don't know if I need a Twayn signal yet, or not, but my wife called me yesterday saying her oil light was turning on and off while she was driving. She claims the level was fine, though they checked it right after stopping. (I had to put some in this morning, so she could drive in in the case of emergency.) I plan to change the oil tonight, since its well due. Otherwise, I'm hoping its the oil pressure switch, which I'm learning is near impossible to get to without removing half the body of the car. (Chrysler and Mercedes engineers can go straight to hell.)
Anyway, if its not either of those two things, then I'm none too excited about how much it might cost. Cars, man.
In related news, my 2003 Camry has intermittent ignition problems. The battery is fine, but sometimes when I turn the key, nothing happens. That is, the engine does not turn over -- zero sound, not even a click -- although the electronics on the dash light up. I can turn the key a dozen or more times with "nothing." Eventually, on one of those turns, the car starts normally (normal turnover).
I'm beginning to think that maybe I need to do something about this before I get stranded somewhere.
Sounds like a starter problem if I've ever heard one. Good thing it isn't German engineered, so it should be reasonably easy to do if your shoulder works.
Second the assessment. Sounds like a bad spot on the starter.
They're not the hardest thing to replace, if you're up for it. I recommend having your dad come teach you how. That made it easier.
I believe if you get stuck, sometimes you can rock the vehicle and move the starter forward to a spot that will work.
thanks, both of youse. Now I'm trying to decide whether we take my car on our fancy Napa weekend, or hers (which has an intermittent issue with rear break lights and turn signals -- a Recall issue which she has steadfastly refused to take a day off to address, since the nearest dealer is a ways away from us).
#rattlethembones
If your car breaks down at some nice Napa gig - oh my. We'll have to spend the night.
Take the car out of park and put it back again? Pressed the brake?
it's a standard. I take it out of reverse and into neutral for a few tries, then back into reverse, but these are just placebo actions, I think.
In related related news: My 2003 Sable has sizable... let's call them "hiccups" occasionally when driving. The car jerks pretty hard (like forward/backward, not side-to-side) Usually feel them at higher speeds (>50), though sometimes smaller ones while getting up to speed. Mechanic says he felt 'em, but absolutely nothing reads on the sensors. He did replace some stabilizers that needed it greatly, and the hiccups don't feel as large now, but they're certainly still present. Feels like the engine is having a little seizure... but it's really inconsistent, so we're not talking like every time through a rotation or anything...
Anyone?
I get the same thing from time to time. Bad gas?
I think I'd start with injector cleaner and check the spark plugs. Those would be the easy places to start, anyway.
Might as well start at the easy places, right? Thanks.
My car did that once and it was the O2 sensor that'd gone bad and the injectors couldn't figure out how much fuel to inject. Though I think that'd turn up on the scan.
It's the not turning up on the scan thing that has me concerned.
My related news is that the speedometer cable in '95 Escort needs to be replaced. I wish I were mechanically inclined enough to trust myself to disassemble the dash to get at it. I'm glad I know what the issue is, but I'm assuming the labor charges will be outrageous.
Happy Friday, everyone
I prefer the one with what appears to be a bottle of some variety of beer.
but what kind of beer?
(paging NCIS crew)
It looks to say Stone at the top, but its a glued on label so it isn't The Stone.
looks like "Stout" on the top of the label. I was gonna opine "Stone" but I don't see their logo, which typically is above the word "Stone". (or "Stone" is printed on the neck of longneck 12s)
Ah, found it. http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/394/1550
I was thrown by the fourth letter not being a T.
Geez, this was apparently a variation on the CSI baseball card "identify the play" series, I guess. Which reminds me, I need to put another one of those together sometime.
nice work, cheaps!
Is that fully functional?
Last night, my wife went out with some friends.
My wife, God love her, cannot get my daughter to go to bed. As a result, when I get home from a ND trip, we have a crabby, sleep deprived little girl who can't behave the way she should. She had soccer on Wednesday night, which was not fun because she was tired and not engaged in the whole thing. I got her to bed at 7:45 Wednesday night. Last night, she was tired again and it was skating. She loves skating so much that even if she's tired, she does well.
We got home at 7:30. She got a quick bath and a popsicle. She was given a choice: go to bed or watch baseball with Dad. She chose the latter. She ate her popsicle and I told her, now lay down next to me on the couch. Not two minutes later, she was sound asleep. Eleven hours later, she awoke with the brilliant smile and demeanor that she has when she's not overtired. I pointed this out to my wife for the millionth time: when she's not tired, she behaves. You have to be firm and tell her to go to sleep, because she will if you do that. She won't listen to reason when she's tired. She will do what you want willingly when she's not tired. It seems to me to be a no-brainer.
This strategy always works for me too.
That's a point.
Point it out, not point it out. Both similarly effective!
Similar effectiveness, vastly different consequences.
There's a fine line between clever and stupid, isn't there?
+11
Gardy always pronounces Ryan Doumit's name "DO-mitt". Maybe it's no big deal, but I'd be upset if I'd been on the team a year and a half and the manager still didn't know how to pronounce my name.
There's a decent chance he does know and mispronounces it as a display of affection. I do that with a few coworkers of mine. For instance, I'll call Kate, Kathryn, even though her real name is Katie. Or I'll butcher last names on purpose.
But to your point, though, I think getting someone's name right is a pretty necessary form of respect if you don't already have a more intimate relationship. Whenever I hear someone excuse themselves from getting a name right because it's too hard to pronounce, I want to slap them.
At the nursing home, I had to beat into the staff over and over and over again that you don't call residents 'honey', 'sweetie' or 'dear,' lest we get fined from the state. When they'd ask what to do instead, I suggested actually calling them by their names.
I had a friend in college that would call every guy he knew "Skippy." That quickly became his nickname. I also used to work with a guy that would call everyone "buddy" or some other friendly nickname. He was in sales and customer service and I think he was afraid of calling people by the wrong name. I think some people just have a very difficult time remembering names. For some it is a matter of "don't care" but I think there are many that just have a very difficult time putting names with faces.
Which is fine if it's someone you only see once a month. But if you work someone for several hours a day, every single day, I think you need to figure out some way to help your memory.
I am one of those people. Absolutely awful with names. My agency has maybe 140 people in it, and I interact semi-regularly with about 30 outside of the group that I supervise. And damned if I know half their names.
I've been campaigning for a "zoo book" for internal use in the agency for years, to no avail (it would be trivially easy to produce, since we already have agency-produced picture ID cards).
this is a worse issue for me when I deal with legislative staff or other agencies' folks. It is Bad to forget a poobah's name.
A trick - when you meet someone, try to use their name in the next sentence that you speak to them.
That's a good idea, Bo. 😉
Twins Finally Starting to Live Up to Their Power Potential
I suppose that you could buy the premise that talking to Joe Mauer is not going to get you much, but it might just be that the author is really not going to get much from Joe. After all, he's talked to trainers that have never heard of a stress reaction, which come to think of it, is completely believable if he talked to the Twins training staff.
Was there a point in that column? Because if there was, I'm missing it. I suppose Souhan would be happier if Terry Ryan had to bail Joe out of jail at 4am a week before the playoffs, but I'm a fan of the current state of affairs.
.
.
J. Jonah Jamison: "Souhan!! Get me a column about Mauer!"
Jim Souhan: "Are you kidding? He won't talk to me -- he doesn't say anything to anyone."
J. Jonah Jamison: "I don't care! Talk to his paper boy! Talk to his kindergarten teacher! We need something!"
Jim Souhan: "Well, okay..."
I loved the story of the little league game that tied with absolutely nothing else in the article. I kept waiting for it to bring it back to some character trait of Joe's or really just lend any sort of credence to the very, very skeletal point of the article, but... nope.
Oh, so... they played little league with some people that we've heard of one time? Huh.
A column dropping as many names as possible?
Good to see Sid is rubbing off on him.
Last night at about 10pm we saw "lightning" and heard "thunder" simultaneously. We jump out of bed and look out the window and see clear skies. We get on the phone to the next-door neighbors. They have called 911 – their 20-year-old daughter saw someone with a large weapon in the backyard neighbor's house. The next-door neighbors had gathered their 3 kids and went to the basement, blocking the bedroom door with a chest of drawers.
My wife called the police to ask what was going on. "What you saw/heard was a flash bang device. Everything is under control. Though there should be no danger, stay in your house. The police are there and have it under control."
The rumor mill is churning. It's pretty clear this was a drug bust. Now we're in a state of concern over the 3 children that live there (with a dad, girlfriend and grandmother). The fact that we only realized there were 2 children and a grandmother certainly says something. The rumor mill also states that these kids are "high risk/bad behavior." Poor, poor kids.
It took me a long time to get to sleep. I'm not really prepared for an intruder. I've generally been the naive "it won't happen to me" guy. I'm somewhat rethinking that policy. On the other hand, there were not any intruders in our neighborhood and it's a little odd that this would cause a change of heart in me.
Yikes. Sorry to hear that.
not to get too far into the Forbidden Zone, but IMO, nobody (short of a professional law enforcement official, or MAYBE some recent veterans) is ever "prepared" to deal with an intruder. Beyond securing your downstairs doors and windows against trivial entry, I think the cost-benefit leans against doing much else. Unless, of course, you live in a high-crime area with frequent break-ins. YMMV.
We had someone step into our window in Washington, near the end of our time there. None of us recovered from it mentally for some time, despite the fact that I felt pretty confident that it was a guy from a few doors down who was moving out and just wanted to snag my PS3 before he left.
About 5 years ago my dad was jumped walking down the street in our home town. 3 guys beat him up and took the cash from his wallet, but it was really just about the beating. He was the 3rd or 4th person they attacked, and his was by far the most brutal. He spent a week in the hospital, needed his jaw rebuilt, couldn't eat solids for months... the doctors said it looked like he'd been hit with a bat several times.
There's a ton more to say about it, but relevant to this conversation: I still look over my shoulder constantly when I'm walking.
One night when I was 14 or 15 I was getting a ride home from some friends when a couple of 20-something redneck pieces of shit started shit with us because they said we flipped them off. They got out of their car to confront us at a stop light, my friend sped away. They chased us and forced my friend to pull off the road a mile or two away, near his house.
They started kicking at the windows on his mom's pickup, telling us to get out and fight them. I'll probably never forget the guy's boot hitting the window next to me saying "c'mon motherfucker!" over and over. Eventually they realized they weren't getting into the car, so they got back into their truck, and pulled into the trailer court just up the road.
We drove past them trying to get back to my friend's house, and saw one guy running into the trailer while the other guy was waiting behind the wheel for him to come out. We sped off, pulled into my friend's garage, and called the cops. We peeked out the window and saw them driving through the neighborhood looking for his car. I could barely function I was so scared. Ever since then I get really tense when someone drives by me walking at night.
When the cops showed up they accused us of making the whole thing up to cover up doing something to ruin his mom's truck, despite us giving them a license plate number and a description of the vehicle. He said he was a cop in Detroit, and things like that never happened in Detroit so he knew they wouldn't happen in Fargo. Coincidentally, I also gained a distrust for the police that night.
fun times.
My only brush with this kind of crap came in high school in Spamtown. I and three of my buddies (ranging from 6'0"/190 to 6'6"/200 to 6'3"/230) were cruising around and some dumb ass decided that the driver of our car had "cut him off" and started chasing us. We pulled over in front of my house. The dumb ass and his partner in stupidity came over to us; we piled out. Partner in stupidity, looking up at us, decided that maybe getting in a 2-on-4 fight with much bigger guys wasn't such a good idea and managed to pull dumb ass away before I started beating on him.
I haven't been in anything resembling a fight since jr. high. That was the closest I've been to one. Simpler times in a simpler place, where nobody seemed to even think about the possibility of weapons being drawn.
I hung out for a while in P.R. in middle school with the Sharps Bros. They were smallish folk, but were good fighters. Key thing was to punch, not wrestle. No one likes getting punched in the face.
Wow. I cannot believe the cops couldn't tell for your demeanor that something was up. Or couldn't tell that the damage was from something ... unusual.
Well, what we found out later was the cop who responded to our call was friends with one of the punk's dad. So when we gave the vehicle description, license plate, etc. he knew who we were talking about. My friend's dad lived apart from the family, and when he came home he went to the Fargo PD to fight it. They eventually opened up an IA investigation, I had to go in to identify the guys, etc. I can't remember if the cop had left before then or if he got fired or what. But I mean, I was glad they acknowledged something wrong went down.
We had a break-in in the neighborhood last summer. Kind of freaked me out - I don't own a weapon or such, not sure I would want one in the house. But I do have my cricket bat in my bedroom closet now.
The thing is I have a couple bats in the bedroom. Kirby Puckett bat-day bats in fact. And I didn't know where I had placed them. No more.
I forgot I do have a weapon in my car - for Xmas last year I bought NBBW and myself 'prepper/rescue' knives. They were designed by a NYC cop as a kind of rescue knife - honking big ragged blade with a side hook blade that can be used to cut through a seat belt. Also has a springy bolt thing to break through car glass (like if you drove into a river, etc). It also has a tiny LED light that can be used to check someone's pupils.
I keep my hurley and my Ka-Bar on my side of the bed.
My dog is stubborn and kind of a jerk some of the time(most of the time), but he's 200 pounds and has an alligator mouth. So he has potential deterrent to home invaders going in his favor. Much better than lethal weaponry I'd think.
Our previous neighbors to the rear had this monstrous scary dog (I think a Rottweiler). It had the most badass guttural growl - I thought about taping it's growl and using it as some kind of home security tape (i.e. window breaks, tape recorder of this goes off). Never completed that project...
This entire thread makes me happy (again) that I live where I do.
Bud Grant comes in at #15 in the espn's Greatest Coaches in NFL History.
I'd be curious to see if any one else < #15 who doesn't have a ring.
there have been 29 different coaches to win one or more Super Bowl. Dungy, Shanahan and Stram were in the 20-16 range. Coughlin, Johnson and Madden were 14, 13, and 12, respectively. That leaves 23.
I'd be surprised if their top-20 list includes more than coaches from the pre-SB era (Halas, Curly Lambeau).
The obvious ones from the "modern" era include Lombardi, Noll, Walsh, Belichik, Landry and Shula, plus Paul Brown. For the other three spots, I might favor Parcells, Gibbs, and Marv Levy. But I have a soft spot for Don Coryell, George Allen and Sid Gillman.
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new Twins player autographed baseball card acquisition alert:
Jim Kaat and Latroy Hawkins
Baseball attendance is down 2.9% over last year. Some of that is due to the horrendous weather at the beginning of the year. Some - 40% - is the Marlins all by their lonesome.1 "Last year, the Marlins sold an average of 27,000 tickets per game, but this year that number is down to 17,893."2
Quick math says 40% of 2.9% is 1.16%. It's crazy that one team can drag down the league average like that.
1[SI]
2[Deadspin]
FTFY. Not like I'm breaking new ground here, but Loria is really an embarrassment to the league.
Bring back the days when Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley were the embarrassment.