52 thoughts on “January 8, 2014: It’s Ice”

    1. I've recently realized that there is something significantly wrong with people in marketing.

      1. The Hitchhiker's Travel Guide describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as:

        "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

        Curiously, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica which conveniently fell through a rift in the time-space continuum from 1000 years in the future describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as:

        "A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."

    1. I find it curious when famous white people haven't denied that they were ever racist. I mean, it makes you wonder, right?

  1. I know this probably isn't news to anyone, but folks need to be cautious on the roads. I know I'm guilty of speeding up with the lack of snow on the highways, but this only makes it easier to miss the formation of black ice.

    This happened last night about 3 miles from my house on a stretch of road I see twice a day.

    1. I saw a 4 car pile up on a residential street on my way into work yesterday. A water main had frozen and ruptured creating a skating rink in the left lane of camp street. I marveled at how many folks got caught up in the wreck, but then realized that it's been years since ice formed on surface streets in NOLA

    2. When I was 16 and a fairly new driver, I was driving (with the family) home from Nebraska. Somewhere out near Blue Earth, my dad sez, "Slow down, it's getting near freezing." I seethed as teenager know-it-alls will do, and slowed from 55 to 50. Then I hit a patch of black ice and spun out, across the highway into the opposite ditch. Somehow there was no oncoming traffic at that instant and somehow the car did not roll over. Lesson learned. Respect the conditions!

    3. I was driving East on Lake St. approaching Hennepin on Monday night and I spun out. It was at about 10:30 pm and Lake St. was thankfully empty, save for some cars behind me who got to witness a thrilling demonstration of daring vehicular bravado. I didn't hit anything and I managed to get my car pointed in the right direction reasonably quickly, but holy moly what a hair-raising experience. I'm not driving above 20 mph on city roads until it warms up.

      1. That brings me back to my stupid days as a 17 year old. I was driving about 60-65 on snowy back roads when I came up over a hill I had forgotten had a stop sign at the bottom. I slammed the brakes being a stupid 17 year old and got sideways, staring at a pine tree. Fortunately, I was able to right the ship and no one at the intersection went through. That might have been the day I decided driving slow was the best way to go. (it wasn't. I was a stupid 17 year old.)

        1. I've spun out twice on 694 in the past two years, and both times I was driving 30 MPH or less. Sometimes it just happens. Not tailgating (and nobody tailgating behind me) saved me both times. But no matter how many times you successfully pull out of a spin, for a brief second you get convinced you're about to get slammed into by a semi.

          1. It's been a while since I ended up in the ditch, but my wife managed it 2 weeks ago, heading north on 35E just past the merge/exit ramp from 694. She was doing probably 60, tapped the brakes and spun through traffic missing three cars and a large light stanchion by ~15 ft. She was convinced one of those three cars was going to slam her, missed them and then spied the light pole through the windshield as she slid towards it.

            Only damage was $100 tow out of the ditch, a flat tire (rolled off the rim) and probably a realignment for the Civic.

  2. The lowest I saw on the car thermometer this morning was -26F. That's getting pretty close to chilly.

  3. So the Wolves are on ESPN tonight and start at 8:30. At 17-17, they would have the 4th best record in the Eastern Conference. A couple more great rebound games and Pek can have a double-double per game (currently sitting at 18.0 ppg/9.3 rpg)

  4. Last night, my wife decided to broil steaks. I was indisposed and she wasn't watching or something and the smoke detectors went off. My wife turned on the ceiling fan and the smoke detector stopped.

    Where's Miss SBG, Lucy asked. I went upstairs to get her when the phone rang. It was the neighbor. Apparently, when the smoke detectors went off, Miss SBG bolted out of the house in her stocking feet and with no jacket in sub-zero temperatures and headed over to the neighbors.

    1. I guess there's a positive to build off of, though.

      A few years ago my daughter's dorm fire alarm went off in the middle of the night in winter, and she had to stop her roommate and make her put on shoes and a jacket. Some people don't think straight even when they aren't waking up from a sound sleep.

    2. I managed to really smoke the place out last time I made steaks (on my birthday). A screaming hot cast iron pan and two big steaks equals lots of towel waving by the detectors. Fortunately, no one ran outside and the steaks were delicious.

  5. Looking for something completely unrelated, I came across this exchange from July 21st.

    The Dread Pirate: So how confident are we in DMB as the leftback in Brazil?
    MagUidhir: Instead of...? In that sense, sure, why not? Edit: That's assuming Cherundolo's knee isn't 100% in time.
    The Dread Pirate: I don't know what the alternative is (Fabian Johnson maybe?). DMB has been way better than I expected, but it still seems like he'll get torched by a top-rate team. I can't even imagine him if the US happens to draw Germany.

    [emphasis added]

    I guess we'll find out

    1. I've been more preoccupied with the RB position since it relates more closely to the Sounders, to the point where I've basically forgotten about LB. It seems more than a little wacky that Brad Evans appears to have the inside track on the RB job considering that:

      1) DeAndre Yedlin plays RB over Evans for the Sounders. This part makes some degree of sense to me--Evans is more valuable to the Sounders as a midfielder, so it'd be a bit of a waste to play Evans at RB and have Yedlin on the bench. Though I'm not 100% sure that Evans would be an upgrade to Yedlin for the Sounders. I'm excited in a 2018 sort of way that Yedlin was called into Camp Cupcake.

      2) From what I read, Geoff Cameron has been playing very well at RB for Stoke City. But Klinsmann appears to rate Cameron higher elsewhere on the field. (I could even be convinced that Cameron is the best central midfield pairing with Bradley, but I probably underrate Jermaine Jones to some degree or another.)

      I like Brad Evans a lot as a player, but even I'm concerned about the prospect of him starting at RB for the US in Brazil.

      1. According to Klinsmann, everyone in the world (besides him) underrates Jones. DMB vs. Ronaldo is going to be cover-your-eyes for 90 minutes.

  6. pretty cool promo video the Wolves put out stumping for Kevin Love votes.

    httpv://youtu.be/Kl1NM88VxGY

  7. To add to my super interesting car story from yesterday, I went out to the garage a couple minutes ago and popped the hood. One really nice thing about this car is that the supply hose from the fuel filter to the injector pump is clear. Taking a close look, I notice a big ol' air bubble in the supply line. I'm thinking the fuel gelled in the filter and cause some air entrainment because I am a dumb ass and didn't use the fuel conditioner I have sitting in my freekin garage on Sunday. I'm going to put a new filter in, but I have to wait until it gets warmer first so I won't have my car until likely Saturday. Overall though, I'm feeling less concerned about how serious my problem is.

    Moral of the story, if its effin cold outside and you drive a diesel, put conditioner in your tank even if its only going to sit outside for a couple hours.

    1. Good news! Got the new fuel filter in and the air in the line out and it runs great again.

  8. Rumors about Michael Bradley to Toronto FC are fast and furious right now. It's a bit complicated since TFC also seems set to bring in Defoe, and that would put them against the 3 DP limit, but they could either be forced to trade Laba or MLS could just Calvinball the rules like they usually do.

      1. Nothing is written in stone in MLS, but if the past is a precedent, then a loan wouldn't get around the DP problem. The Sounders wanted to loan out a DP a couple years ago to open up a DP slot, but were told that loaning out a DP would not allow them to add another. Also, transfer fees are supposed to count towards DP status, and even a small fraction of Bradley's transfer fee would put him over the DP limit. But Calvinball is always a possibility and MLS could declare that it's okay to have a 4th DP if he's only around for half the season.

    1. There are now some reports that this is a done deal. $7-10M transfer fee with a $6.5M/year salary. Looks like his wages were around $1.1M/year with Roma, and it seemed like he was being crowded out of the picture there, so I can see why this would look like a good deal to him. Either that or he wanted to move farther from his dad.

      1. More than the Calvinballing* of the rules, what concerns me with this whole deal is that now Bradley is on the gawd-awful Toronto side.

        *Nice choice of word in this situation

        1. It is certainly concerning that TFC always seems to find a way to fail, but this is arguably the longest time they've given a coach to put together a team, and they are really splashing the cash this offseason. Also, Tim Leiweke is the president/CEO at TFC now, and he has solid MLS credentials.

          I'm a little less concerned about Bradley being with a poor side than I am with Jozy getting no service at Sunderland. Hopefully it all works out in Brazil.

  9. I enjoyed this. 4 of the biggest stars in the MN sports scene. Also, nice to hear they invited the Lynx too.

  10. As it stands now, Xbox won't have anymore MLB games. I'm sure someone will eventually pick it up cheaply for the Xbox. I'm guessing EA has an exclusive contract with Sony for The Show. I have both games and I actually liked the more interactive controls for 2K11 for PS3, but the game kept locking up on me, so I'm just using The Show 10. I like being able to play my music while playing games, which both allow, but The Show requires them to be MP3s and most of them were WMAs. 2K11 would play both, so that was another big reason I was playing 2K11, but I gave up with it continuously locking up.

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