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Mel Kiper Sr.'s son.

Mel Kiper Sr.'s son.

If you haven't double…

If you haven't double checked recently, you should do so.  I think most providers have moved their covered range to 45.

Wife and I are both colon…

Wife and I are both colon cancer survivors (so far!).  Me Stage 2, wife Stage 3.

 

Get your colonoscopy.

I became a Michigan fan when…

I became a Michigan fan when I enrolled in 1989 (post BBall championship).  I wasn't much of a college sports fan prior to that except for DePaul basketball, since my dad played for Coach Ray.  My earliest Michigan sports memory is probably the 1 vs. 2 game against Iowa (in 1985?).  I didn't pay that much attention, but I was vaguely rooting for Iowa since my mom was from Iowa and her brothers are all big Hawkeye fans.

My Patrick Kane story.

 

I…

My Patrick Kane story.

I live in Chicago, in a house that happens to have been owned (a few owners ago) by Stan Bowman and his wife when he was in the Chicago front office (but before he was GM).  When the Blackhawks drafted Kane, he was still 17 and his parents didn't want him living in Chicago on his own.  Bowman volunteered a room in his basement, where Kane lived for a while.  The neighbors report they used to see him in the kitchen area eating cereal in the morning.  (They also report that Stan and his wife Sue were lovely people.  We still occasionally get mail addressed to Sue - usually charity requests.)

So we have a room in the basement that we've dubbed the "Patrick Kane Room".  Once we get the basement refinished (had some flooding damage last year) it will be my home office.

I'm enjoying how you mixed…

I'm enjoying how you mixed together "nondisclosure" and "confidentiality" into something unintended!

In a now infamous case, a…

In a now infamous case, a lawyer used ChatGPT to write a brief.  It did not go well.

 

In short, ChatGPT cited fake cases by real judges, and the lawyer didn't do any due diligence to look into the citations.

In-house contracts lawyer…

In-house contracts lawyer here.  I love seeing language I know we penned show up in edits from one of the outside firms who frequently represent our customers.  (Although sometimes it's because they're using language that was a concession on our part to close another deal, and we'd really rather not see it duplicated!)

Not a firm like W&C. …

Not a firm like W&C.  Barring gross malpractice, losing this wouldn't dent their reputation at all.

Yeah, I've seen plenty of…

Yeah, I've seen plenty of cases where big firms take on loser cases.  That's not to say that Michigan has a loser case here - just that hiring a big time firm doesn't reflect on the strength of a party's case.

If there is no sportsmanship…

If there is no sportsmanship clause equivalent in the NCAA's rules, and the Big Ten limits its investigation to its sportsmanship clause, there's no possibility that the Big Ten is jumping the gun on the NCAA's investigation.  Besides, the NCAA is clearly communicating with the Big Ten about the investigation (since it's been reported that the NCAA told the Big Ten that their investigation has found that Harbaugh did not have a direct connection to Stalions' scheme), so it's not a stretch to assume that the NCAA has told the Big Ten the general parameters of their investigation.

To piggyback on this a bit,…

To piggyback on this a bit, is there anything that would prevent the conference from running a concurrent investigation to the NCAA's for different offenses, even if those offenses rise from the same underlying conduct?  In this case, the NCAA is apparently investigating for violations of advanced scouting and/or using video equipment, while the Big Ten is investigating a violation of the sportsmanship policy.  They both arise from Stalions' conduct, but are different offenses.

I approve of this message.

I approve of this message.

Watching the Cubs right now…

Watching the Cubs right now.  One more out for the win!

March 13 was my last day in…

March 13 was my last day in the office.  Working from home has been a challenge (3 kids under 10 and no dedicated office space at home), but I still have a job at full pay.  I work in Chicago for a major (Fortune 8, I think) company as in house counsel.  We had a legal town hall yesterday with our General Counsel, and he said return to the office is measured in "months, not weeks".  I'm itching to get back to the office, but given that one of my kids is medically complex and at high risk to COVID, I'll stay home as long as needed.

Sure, there would be issues…

Sure, there would be issues with some of the quotes, but folks would be bending over backward to justify them or give him the benefit of the doubt.  It's just funny how quickly people find something to justify their pivot from "This kid is going to be awesome!" to "We didn't want him anyway."  All fanbases do stuff like this - the player is perfect for a team until he commits elsewhere, and then we didn't want him anyway.  Stuff like this comes off as sour grapes.

A lot of retconning going on…

A lot of retconning going on in this thread to make folks feel better about the situation.  If he had committed to Michigan this article would have been met with cheers of how smart he is to be planning his future so carefully, and thus he's a perfect fit for UofM.

I don't know.  Do we really…

I don't know.  Do we really want to be talking about teams with transitive wins over Wisconsin?  I mean . . . .

I did Leatherman for my…

I did Leatherman for my wedding.  I don't know if my groomsmen still use theirs, but I got one for myself and still use it.

My wife got this for me, so…

My wife got this for me, so I didn't know the price.  At $50/month it's probably not exactly a steal, but it's got some cool shirts and random other items.  Last year I got a nice charcuterie board (not that we ever have charcuterie), a metal water bottle, and some other decent stuff that I don't really need, but is nice to have.

Side note, they come in nice maize and blue boxes that can be turned inside-out and reused.  The kids seem to like those to store things.

But they weren't starting…

But they weren't starting from the same point.  Patterson (141.22) had a higher rating in his pre-transfer year than than any of them (Mayfield - 127.66, Murray - 109.19; Wilson - 135.47).  Yes, each of their improvements was higher than Patterson's, but I'm not trying to argue that Patterson is better than any of them.  I'm saying that if the premise of the article is about the impact that a transfer has on the new program, then the improvement/regression of the transfer is not a very good measure.

From the article:

But what gets lost in the drama of the quarterback carousel is that these transfers are rarely a magic solution. Yes, Mayfield and Murray were the two most successful transfer quarterbacks this century, based on passer ratings.4 But schools turning to a transfer to transform their program often end up disappointed.

If you're measuring whether the transfers are a "magic solution", you should base that on team success, and where the team would have been without the transfer.  A team could theoretically have a transfer with flat or even lower passer ratings that makes the difference between 9-3 and 12-0 if they were really good at their previous stop.  Yes, I think you'll generally find a correlation between QB improvement and school success, but that's not causation.

My problem with the article…

My problem with the article is that it supposedly seeks to measure the impact of the transfer QBs, but does so by stating how much better or worse they are in their new school vs. their old school.  It shows Patterson pretty far down the list, but that was because he was already pretty dang good before he got to Michigan.

 

The impact to Michigan, though, was tremendous.  Having Patterson start instead of Peters or freshman McCaffrey was huge for Michigan.  I'd argue he was a big positive impact to Michigan, but the metrics the article uses to measure the impact simply doesn't reflect the impact that the transfer has on the new school.

From their site:


all…

From their site:

all sports in which the NCAA or NAIA offers a championship, along with Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly I-A) football

 

Sports Included

  • Division I: Count 19 sports with the following breakdowns (decreased by 1, 19.1 avg.)
    - Four of which must be Baseball and Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball and Women's Volleyball
    - The next highest 15 (max.) sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, will be used in the standings

So it appears that it covers all sports with a championship (plus FBS), and each school gets a maximum of 19 sports.

From what I can see, they do…

From what I can see, they do include football and hockey.

Really?  I can't say I blame…

Really?  I can't say I blame them.  The offense hasn't scored a TD all year, so it's probably time for a change.

 

Still, it would be great to see him OC with Denard.  You have to figure he'd put Denard in there for some wildcat snaps, right?

The NCAA Tournament is…

The NCAA Tournament is already a one-and-done deal, regardless of whether you have 10 or 0 losses.  I don't think there's any significant incremental pressure from having an undefeated season on the line in that situation.

 

(That said, it's likely a moot point, as I don't see us going undefeated.)

1989, I believe.

1989, I believe.

Family first.

Family first.

This opinion is bad and you…

This opinion is bad and you should feel bad.

Coincidentally, my 4-year…

Coincidentally, my 4-year-old twins also love Paw Patrol!  We actually don't let them watch too much TV, so they don't get to see it very often.  We do have a Paw Patrol 5-minute stories book that they love, though.  Boy twin also has Paw Patrol underwear.  (Girl twin has Peppa Pig underpants.)

I spent three years there…

I spent three years there for law school, and, well, maybe beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

Triple Paste is the most

Triple Paste is the most superiorest.  Nurses in the NICU turned us on to it.  It's more expensive, but it's worth it.

 

(But it's admittedly not as much fun to say as Boudreaux's Butt Paste.)

This is such a good one.  We

This is such a good one.  We made all kinds of noise when the kids were sleeping as babies, and now they'll sleep through just about anything.  I run the Vitamix most nights while they're sleeping, and they don't wake up (8 yr old and twin 3 yr olds - although the 8 yr old doesn't really count since he's deaf and doesn't wear his cochlear implant microphones when he's sleeping!).

Plenty of Chicagoans love

Plenty of Chicagoans love Chicago style deep-dish pizza.  It's just that it's more of a special occasion treat than your weekly order.  Chicago style thin crust (not cracker, not as chewy as NY slices) with sausage in a box cut is where it's at for take-out for pizza night.

Joey won 20 games or more

Joey won 20 games or more each of his first 8 years, and went to the NCAA 7 times.  He was over .500 each of his first 11 years.  He was under .500 his final two years (including bottoming out at 3-24 in his final year).  He wasn't a great coach, but he was hardly a disaster.

Michigan fans complain about

Michigan fans complain about officiating way too much.

My primary care doctor has

My primary care doctor has offered a concierge service for a few years, but I'm too cheap to pay for it.  That said, I haven't had any problems getting appointments or seeing someone at the practice.

When the kids were under 2,

When the kids were under 2, we had a strict no TV policy, so I did this for pretty much all games.  Every once in a while it gets spoiled, but I learned to live with it.  The worst was the awful PSU game that went into multiple OTs.  That was when I learned to pad a lot of time on the end of the games.

I really like it for football, particularly for teams that go full huddle and don't work the clock.  You can do a 30 second skip between plays, and they generally line up pretty nice to the snap of the next play.

I eventually learned that my wife (who generally doesn't like sports, but especially disdains football) would look up the outcomes of sporting events I was recording so she knew whether I was going to be happy or not.

This is such a bad look for

This is such a bad look for our fan base that we always come out bitching about the officiating after a loss.

16 years, by my

16 years, by my count.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Collins_(quarterback)

Looks like Collins played 16

Looks like Collins played 16 years with 21 starts, but 13 of those starts were in 1997, so I guess he was a starter for a year.

That might actually be Todd

That might actually be Todd Collins.

They did that at least in

They did that at least in 1992, which was the one time I went to Rick's.

In Chicago, it's called a

In Chicago, it's called a "Max Malortenschlager".

This is a really effective

This is a really effective drug in many cases.  My son was involved in a trial with this, and it stopped his seizures cold.  Unfortunately, it had negative interactions with another of his medications (overworking the liver), and because it was a trial, we couldn't modify his other epilepsy meds during the trial.  We had to get off of the Epidiolex. 

 

We're currently in the process of weaning off of the other medicine so that when Epidiolex becomes generally available, we'll be able to jump right on it.

So a big win against a

So a big win against a "power" in the opener followed by a lackluster win against an overmatched opponent can be the start of a big season?  Please, go on . . . .

Every day.

Every day.

The use of marijuana extracts

The use of marijuana extracts (primarily CBD oil, I beleve) is *extremely* promising in epilepsy research, but it's still in clinical trials.  My son was in one of those trials, and while we don't know for sure whether he was receiving the CBD vs. placebo, it was pretty obvious that he was getting the good stuff.  He was largely zoned out due to it (likely due to an interaction with another anti-seizure medication he takes), but his seizures stopped completely - from 10-30 a day down to zero.  Unfortunatley, it also spiked his liver usage (or something like that - not a doctor here), which was also due to interaction with another drug he's on.  Because it was a controlled study, we didn't have the option to take him off of the other drugs - we just had to leave the study.  Once it becomes available, though, we're getting him off the other drugs and trying out the CBD again.

 

With all that said, it's not necessarily the best treatment for all seizures.  Do you know what type of seizures your nephew is having?  If they're something called "Infantile Spasms" or "West's Syndrome", steroids are the most effective (gold standard in the US is typically ACTH) or Vigabatrin (don't be scared off by the vision side effects on that one).

 

Regardless, the best bet is to ensure that your nephew's parents are having him seen by a top notch children's hospital with a strong neurology department.  Mott isn't bad in the Midwest, but your best bets are probably Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago or Cincinnati Children's Hospital.  Push the doctors hard, and don't be afraid to seek second opinions if treatment is not working.  Controlling epilepsy is an art as much as it is a science, and sometimes a different doctor can make all the difference.  A good doctor shouldn't be insulted or threated by news that parents want to seek a second opinion.

I think I still have my

I think I still have my Subway sweatshirt from probably 1991.

Back then the 10th goal was the pizza goal - free small cheese pizza from Cottage Inn (pickup only), IIRC.  The lines were long, but it was worth it!

Just guessing, but he

Just guessing, but he acknowledged his errors, paid his punishment, has been a model student-athlete since then, etc.  Spin it as a redemption where Michigan's tough love in kicking him off the team paid off in making him a better person.  It won't quiet all of the naysayers, but it passes the sniff test.