Nothing like a good place for hiking. Get that forest bathing in.
33 thoughts on “July 3, 2023: On The Trail”
We were at Walmart Saturday getting cat food and sundries for the tent and I found a little Buck pocketknife set on clearance, a three-blade Stockman and a little single blade penknife. I haven't carried a knife since 9/11 and can't count the number of times one would have made my life a lot easier, so I went for it. Opened the box, snapped out a blade, and shaved a bald spot on my arm with one swipe. Sharp little buggers they are. Now I need to get some carborundum to keep them that way.
Oh, a knife is essential to my everyday life. I have carried several different knives over the years including a most beautifully designed Keyshaw double cross that lost its life in the depths of lake Washington. At one time I sported the opinel #8 until I sliced my index finger open on the closure (not even cut by the blade! Real achievement) Now I carry a compact Milwaukee utility knife (a utility knife is the most destructive and loss time injury producing tool on a job site, fyi)I feel naked without it in my back pocket.
Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards has agreed on a five-year designated rookie maximum deal that could be worth $260 million, his agents Bill Duffy and Joe Branch of WME tell ESPN. pic.twitter.com/d0UTdqFgD9
How many powers of ten more than minimum wage is that?
How many more powers of ten does Glen Taylor make each year? Taylor can't even go to his left! Very limited game.
I mean, minimum wage sucks regardless of that contract. I find it more interesting to compare to a decent salary. $260M is 1733 years of working at $150K/year. If you figure 40 years for a career that averages $150K/year, then that's roughly 43 entire (good) careers worth of money earned over five years. (Progressive taxes make that not quite a fair comparison, but most basketball players making that much money are probably also pulling down some endorsement money that probably offsets the taxation difference.)
I understand some of the dynamics at play, but I still think it's pretty crazy that none of the sports players unions do something to bridge the gap between the star players and the role players/reserves. According to basketball reference, 14 players on the Wolves made less than $2.5M/year last year. The top 4 made $105M last year. If you took half of that -- like the brazen socialist that I am -- and spread it out over the last 14 guys on the roster, they would go from making $1M to $2.5M to making $3.8M to $6M. For guys who typically have such short careers, that's a huge difference.
Baseball is arguably worse than that, considering how poorly they pay minor league players combined with how gigantic the gap is between arbitration salaries and free agent salaries. Like if you took 10% of what Bryce Harper makes this year (so about $2.7M), you could more than pay for an entire AAA team's payroll (I'm pretty sure that 25 players at $100K/year is higher than what you'd typically pay for a AAA team.) Baseball players as a group deserve their fair share of the revenue that MLB brings in, but it's bonkers to me that the union as a whole thinks this is a good arrangement.
There's no mechanism to make it happen, but if you could take money from the highest-paid players and change the averages to $100K, $150K, $200K, $250K per year for A-, A+, AA, and AAA, for 25-man rosters, that'd be $17.5M/year to pay the players for four levels of your minor league system, and then if you had full revenue sharing and a hard cap (with a minimum percentage of revenue guaranteed to the players), you could still have something like $175M/year per team to spread around on salaries. And then if the minimum was about $3.3M/year, you'd still have $87.5M/year to spread around on top of minimum for "premium" players. Maybe the top salaries would be like $10M-15M instead of $25M-35M, but the top players would still be rich by non-billionaire standards and someone hanging around mostly in AAA for 10-12 years plus 1-2 years in the majors would roughly make the equivalent of $150K/year for 40 years. That's a pretty great deal, but it's frankly a rare set of skills that can get you even that far in baseball.
I will opine that the NBA does pretty well in providing reasonable subsidy to the end-of-bench guys. Probably much more so than other major team sports.
Minimum salaries in the NBA range from $1.12 million for rookies to more than $3 million for players with 10+ years experience.
Getting signed to a full contract at a $million-plus can set someone for life, assuming they are relatively careful with their money. Won't make them rich, but can make life pretty good as a supplement.
I agree. It’s a little easier for them with smaller rosters, but a $1M+ minimum is a better deal than you can get in some of the other sports. It just could be even better.
excellent!
We went to a matinee of Asteroid City yesterday. I'd go see it again today if I had time, and maybe again tomorrow.
FYI, MLB.tv is streaming every game for free today.
from the tweets machine
DanHayesMLB
@DanHayesMLB
MRI showed Royce Lewis has a Grade 2 oblique strain, which likely means he’s out six weeks. #MNTwins
🙁
I don’t know why but for some reason I dislike oblique injuries more than other injuries of similar severity. I know it is a real injury, but something in my brain makes them feel made up.
More or less than bilateral leg weakness
It’s more common than bilateral leg weakness, so it’s more annoying. And to be clear, I am irritated with the obliques, not the players.
I know. Just joshin
As I have gotten older and more secure in life, when visiting ball parks I often buy a cap of the local team as a keep sake/memory. In Boston getting ready to visit Fenway for the first time, not sure if I can pull the trigger on a Sox cap. Don't think I could ever get a Yanks or Pale Hose cap. Boston just as bad?
Open to suggestions here.
My suggestion is that you get any cap you want and don't worry about it.
I don't really want a red Sox hat but ... Tradition?
Buy a 1903 Americans cap instead
I agree, though also have trouble buying something I won’t wear. Now if you plan to display it somehow…
A pink one?
I somehow acquired a completely aqua Mariners cap with a white top button. I think it's a gurlz cap but I still wear it on occasion.
For me the Sawks are more tedious than either the Yanks or Hosers, but if you’re committed to the bit, I think the keepsake is the way to go.
Ending up getting the herd red Sox shirts. Bison is pretty committed to going to school there after the last few days. Spent time on campus at a few places. So much for giving him the middle name Mauer....
We put the girl cat down today. Rough day, as the Mrs was second-guessing herself the whole way to the vet (our recommended at-home service didn't have anything until Wednesday. We really didn't want to put her through Ordinance Night tomorrow or our bathroom demo, which starts Wednesday.)
She cried, as always, going into the carrier and on the (short) drive to our vet. But she calmed down in MrsS's arms. We petted her right up to the end and she was very calm. Small favors.
It's been an emotional day here. We've had her for about 15 years. She came as a rescue kitten from outside the monkey labs at UC Davisville. Super sweet girl. Over the last several months, she and I had a regular routine I which she would run to the couch and cry for me to sit down with my morning coffee so I could give her 30+ minutes of pets.
I will miss her.
The boy cat seems a little confused by her absence. Not sure how long he will miss her.
My cats are seven and I’m not dealing well with the fact that they’re likely halfway home. I don’t remember if I mentioned it here, but one of our two cats got out of the house somehow a couple of weeks ago on the heels of two deaths in my family, and it was hell. Two mornings later, thankfully, my wife got up at 5 in the morning and Corporal Fuzzington was sitting out on the back step just waiting to come in. Like your boy, Samushu was seemingly confused by the absence of Corporal. I’m still thrilled every time I get to see Corporal now, as if she was gone much longer.
Sorry about your cat, man. When my mom’s dog died 15 years ago I found out I didn’t deal well with pet deaths, which was news to me. I’ve had a better appreciation for what everyone else is going through in the years since.
My cat was born before the WGOM. Hope yours do so well
We've had Gemma for about 5 years now and for the first few she was an outdoor cat. Then the neighbors called the cops on us and she became an indoor cat. I was really pissed off about it at the time, but now I think they did us a favor by forcing us to keep her inside.
I vaguely recall this, but who calls the cops on a cat?
Maybe it was a burglar?
Tough time for Citizen’s pets lately. We’ll have to do a In Memoriam video at the end of the year.
Ahh, don't say that. We've got an old man at home that's looking pretty rough these days.
We were at Walmart Saturday getting cat food and sundries for the tent and I found a little Buck pocketknife set on clearance, a three-blade Stockman and a little single blade penknife. I haven't carried a knife since 9/11 and can't count the number of times one would have made my life a lot easier, so I went for it. Opened the box, snapped out a blade, and shaved a bald spot on my arm with one swipe. Sharp little buggers they are. Now I need to get some carborundum to keep them that way.
Oh, a knife is essential to my everyday life. I have carried several different knives over the years including a most beautifully designed Keyshaw double cross that lost its life in the depths of lake Washington. At one time I sported the opinel #8 until I sliced my index finger open on the closure (not even cut by the blade! Real achievement) Now I carry a compact Milwaukee utility knife (a utility knife is the most destructive and loss time injury producing tool on a job site, fyi)I feel naked without it in my back pocket.
How many powers of ten more than minimum wage is that?
How many more powers of ten does Glen Taylor make each year? Taylor can't even go to his left! Very limited game.
I mean, minimum wage sucks regardless of that contract. I find it more interesting to compare to a decent salary. $260M is 1733 years of working at $150K/year. If you figure 40 years for a career that averages $150K/year, then that's roughly 43 entire (good) careers worth of money earned over five years. (Progressive taxes make that not quite a fair comparison, but most basketball players making that much money are probably also pulling down some endorsement money that probably offsets the taxation difference.)
I understand some of the dynamics at play, but I still think it's pretty crazy that none of the sports players unions do something to bridge the gap between the star players and the role players/reserves. According to basketball reference, 14 players on the Wolves made less than $2.5M/year last year. The top 4 made $105M last year. If you took half of that -- like the brazen socialist that I am -- and spread it out over the last 14 guys on the roster, they would go from making $1M to $2.5M to making $3.8M to $6M. For guys who typically have such short careers, that's a huge difference.
Baseball is arguably worse than that, considering how poorly they pay minor league players combined with how gigantic the gap is between arbitration salaries and free agent salaries. Like if you took 10% of what Bryce Harper makes this year (so about $2.7M), you could more than pay for an entire AAA team's payroll (I'm pretty sure that 25 players at $100K/year is higher than what you'd typically pay for a AAA team.) Baseball players as a group deserve their fair share of the revenue that MLB brings in, but it's bonkers to me that the union as a whole thinks this is a good arrangement.
There's no mechanism to make it happen, but if you could take money from the highest-paid players and change the averages to $100K, $150K, $200K, $250K per year for A-, A+, AA, and AAA, for 25-man rosters, that'd be $17.5M/year to pay the players for four levels of your minor league system, and then if you had full revenue sharing and a hard cap (with a minimum percentage of revenue guaranteed to the players), you could still have something like $175M/year per team to spread around on salaries. And then if the minimum was about $3.3M/year, you'd still have $87.5M/year to spread around on top of minimum for "premium" players. Maybe the top salaries would be like $10M-15M instead of $25M-35M, but the top players would still be rich by non-billionaire standards and someone hanging around mostly in AAA for 10-12 years plus 1-2 years in the majors would roughly make the equivalent of $150K/year for 40 years. That's a pretty great deal, but it's frankly a rare set of skills that can get you even that far in baseball.
I will opine that the NBA does pretty well in providing reasonable subsidy to the end-of-bench guys. Probably much more so than other major team sports.
Minimum salaries in the NBA range from $1.12 million for rookies to more than $3 million for players with 10+ years experience.
Getting signed to a full contract at a $million-plus can set someone for life, assuming they are relatively careful with their money. Won't make them rich, but can make life pretty good as a supplement.
I agree. It’s a little easier for them with smaller rosters, but a $1M+ minimum is a better deal than you can get in some of the other sports. It just could be even better.
excellent!
We went to a matinee of Asteroid City yesterday. I'd go see it again today if I had time, and maybe again tomorrow.
FYI, MLB.tv is streaming every game for free today.
from the tweets machine
🙁
I don’t know why but for some reason I dislike oblique injuries more than other injuries of similar severity. I know it is a real injury, but something in my brain makes them feel made up.
More or less than bilateral leg weakness
It’s more common than bilateral leg weakness, so it’s more annoying. And to be clear, I am irritated with the obliques, not the players.
I know. Just joshin
As I have gotten older and more secure in life, when visiting ball parks I often buy a cap of the local team as a keep sake/memory. In Boston getting ready to visit Fenway for the first time, not sure if I can pull the trigger on a Sox cap. Don't think I could ever get a Yanks or Pale Hose cap. Boston just as bad?
Open to suggestions here.
My suggestion is that you get any cap you want and don't worry about it.
I don't really want a red Sox hat but ... Tradition?
Buy a 1903 Americans cap instead
I agree, though also have trouble buying something I won’t wear. Now if you plan to display it somehow…
A pink one?
I somehow acquired a completely aqua Mariners cap with a white top button. I think it's a gurlz cap but I still wear it on occasion.
For me the Sawks are more tedious than either the Yanks or Hosers, but if you’re committed to the bit, I think the keepsake is the way to go.
Ending up getting the herd red Sox shirts. Bison is pretty committed to going to school there after the last few days. Spent time on campus at a few places. So much for giving him the middle name Mauer....
We put the girl cat down today. Rough day, as the Mrs was second-guessing herself the whole way to the vet (our recommended at-home service didn't have anything until Wednesday. We really didn't want to put her through Ordinance Night tomorrow or our bathroom demo, which starts Wednesday.)
She cried, as always, going into the carrier and on the (short) drive to our vet. But she calmed down in MrsS's arms. We petted her right up to the end and she was very calm. Small favors.
It's been an emotional day here. We've had her for about 15 years. She came as a rescue kitten from outside the monkey labs at UC Davisville. Super sweet girl. Over the last several months, she and I had a regular routine I which she would run to the couch and cry for me to sit down with my morning coffee so I could give her 30+ minutes of pets.
I will miss her.
The boy cat seems a little confused by her absence. Not sure how long he will miss her.
My cats are seven and I’m not dealing well with the fact that they’re likely halfway home. I don’t remember if I mentioned it here, but one of our two cats got out of the house somehow a couple of weeks ago on the heels of two deaths in my family, and it was hell. Two mornings later, thankfully, my wife got up at 5 in the morning and Corporal Fuzzington was sitting out on the back step just waiting to come in. Like your boy, Samushu was seemingly confused by the absence of Corporal. I’m still thrilled every time I get to see Corporal now, as if she was gone much longer.
Sorry about your cat, man. When my mom’s dog died 15 years ago I found out I didn’t deal well with pet deaths, which was news to me. I’ve had a better appreciation for what everyone else is going through in the years since.
My cat was born before the WGOM. Hope yours do so well
We've had Gemma for about 5 years now and for the first few she was an outdoor cat. Then the neighbors called the cops on us and she became an indoor cat. I was really pissed off about it at the time, but now I think they did us a favor by forcing us to keep her inside.
I vaguely recall this, but who calls the cops on a cat?
Maybe it was a burglar?
Tough time for Citizen’s pets lately. We’ll have to do a In Memoriam video at the end of the year.
Ahh, don't say that. We've got an old man at home that's looking pretty rough these days.