Cup of Coffee

March 7, 2016: Spring

34 Comments

Trimmed some bushes and pruned the raspberries yesterday. Still more bushes to trim hack back but I might remove them instead this year. They're too large for where they are but with all the rocks on the soil I've been avoiding outright removal.

34 thoughts on “March 7, 2016: Spring”

    1. Holy crap. I'm pretty sure that kid's brain completely shut down behind that guys arm, judging by his mouth.

    2. another day, another everyday act of heroism by a parent (presuming that's his dad).

      3. Heroic in reaction maybe, but stupid in letting the kid be on the phone and not paying attention to the game where stuff like that can happen. I would imagine serious injuries are up in parks because people are being distracted by phones and tablets.

        1. I can remember taking the Boy to a sporting event when he was five. He spent a lot of time playing with his Matchbox cars.

          Kids are kids. Even adults can be easily distracted.

          1. I think it depends on the location too. I wouldn't want to sit close to the action with a young child because I know I'm going to have to be alert for every pitch.

            1. Yeah, probably the smartest thing to do is either make sure you're behind the netting or sit far enough away to allow for the adult reaction time to protect the kids and with the adults sitting on the side closest to the action.

              1. I honed my reaction speed as a kid, chasing foul balls at American Legion games. For every ten foul balls you returned to the concession stand, you got a free treat (valued at about a quarter). It wasn't unusual to have a dozen kids vying to chase down and return foul balls on any given day, so reading the ball off the bat was important. Also had to be good at beating the brush since many of the balls ended up in deep weeds way behind the bleachers and dugouts.

                1. The same sort of thing happens at Mallards games here in Madison. A foul ball is a free hot dog.

                2. Roughly 2.5 cents per foul? At the risk of big-kid elbows and sticks in the eye? I at least remember getting a sucker for balls returned...don't remember where that was...
                  And here I can't get my kid to vacuum a couple rooms for a buck.

                3. When I was a kid it was a dime. Later in went to a quarter. By the time I left Wessington Springs ten years ago, it was fifty cents.

            2. Yup. We got free tickets to a Twins game at Target field, lower bowl, first-base side, just to the right of where the netting ends. It was awful and exhausting. I felt like I had to play goaltender for three hours. Of course, nothing even came close to us.

            3. I saw an adult get hit at a game in Anaheim in 2005. This was pre-smartphone for most regular folk, I'm guessing. She just wasn't paying attention.

              My feeling is that the spectator assumes liability for themselves at those close distances to the action, and I'd prefer that only engaged fans get those seats. Economics and litigation (once again) conspire to ruin a good thing for everyone.

      4. I have always preached to my daughter the importance of situational awareness and threat assessment. It's amazing to me how many people fail to grasp these simple concepts.

        1. I have trouble managing that over(re)active part of my brain, but I also struggle understanding how some people are so out of tune with it.

          1. My eldest finally took the lesson to heart her last year of softball when she got hit square on the top of the head with a foul ball while she was sitting in the dugout not paying attention to the game. At the end-of-season pizza dinner, the team gave her this sign (it's still hanging from her old bedroom door) as a gag gift.

  2. Gophers men's basketball are without Joey King, who broke his foot, for the B1G tourney, which means they will be without 5 of their top 8 players, including their only two seniors. They have 5 scholarship players and 3 walk-ons. And this is a team that was 2-14 in conference or something like that when all the discipline problems began. If they win against Illinois, that will be a bigger upset than the famous Iron Five win over Ohio State back in the 80s that happened after the rape allegations against 3 players in Wisconsin (later acquitted).

  3. Trevor May's first inning today (after 3 shutout innings by Hughes), he struck out Adam Jones, Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo, all swinging. These are all guys with pretty high strikeout rates but all are very dangerous MLB batters.

      1. Make that 3 walks for Arcia. The third came after Sano scored from first on a one-out double by Plouffe. Arcia also stole second on a (presumed) hit-and-run. Strange game today.

        2. Arcia has always drawn a lot of walks in winter ball, not so much in the summer. I don't know if he changes his approach or if it has to do with the pitching.

          1. Someone tweeted that he said he was trying to be more patient today, so it is nice to see him able to execute a different approach at the plate. And it's not like the pitchers were exceptionally wild today. The rest of the team had a total of 3 walks.

  4. FYI:

    So it looks like there are two presales for Sturgill Simpson on Thursday March 10th, both at 10:00a

    One is with The Current, the other is through First Avenue. In both cases you need to be on their email lists and you will get a notification Thursday morning.

    Ill post the presales here on Thursday.

    1. Ugh. I'm totes disappointed that he's not touring through NOLA. I'm also unwilling to give him 175 bones to get the pirate flag and compass combo.

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