Well we met reasonable expectations, which was to get to the round of 16. Our team is very talented in the midfield and showed it throughout the tournament.... but other than Pulisic, we really don't have another legit striker. Our defense is just not world class in terms of skills and speed, and eventually good teams will break it down over the course of the game.
Wrong. January through April are the best months in coastal California, in my opinion. Crystal clear skies (yes, once or twice a month it may rain) and 65 degrees literally every day. Paradise for a golfer, biker, hiker, sailor, and skier.
COYS! Antonio Conte is the manager of the year, IMO, the way he revived and coached-up a demoralized Spurs team from mid-season to today’s placement in Champions League! And he brought in Kulusevski and Bentancor who made such an impact for Spurs’ attack and control of the midfield!
Loved watching him score those two goals today! And as above, none of his goals were penalties, which I’m wondering if that has ever been done by a Golden Boot winner?
The problem is, Russia's leaders and corrupt oligarchs want to have it both ways. Putin's quest is to recreate the geographic footprint of the Soviet Union as a fascist empire and isolate its citizens in a closed, totalitarian society; and yet he and his billionaire oligarch buddies want to continue to live lavish lifestyles in their Mediterranean villas and cruise their hundred million dollar yachts to stylish Western ports. Europe is saying no, this time you've gone too far: by invading a country whose citizens had a Western-style independent nation and overwhelmingly want self-determination.
If it's a closed society that Russia wants, then fine, the door needs to be closed to its athletes, musicians, and other performers who have enjoyed free access to the rewards of Western culture and lifestyle, but who still support Putin. Supporting Putin is supporting literally thousands of targeted cruise missile and artillery strikes on Ukraine apartment buildings, hospitals, and theatres, where thousands of innocent civilians are now dead, and for which there is absolutely no moral justification.
After watching the Costa Rica game, I’m skeptical that we get out of the group stage. England has a much better team than the last time we faced them in the World Cup in 2010, when the English goalie gave up one of the all-time howlers on a slow rolling shot.
Just to clarify how using the Tesla Supercharger network works, the charging sites are typically spaced about two hundred miles apart on the interstate highway system. So for a cross-country road trip, the only time you’d ever have a full charge is starting from your garage on day one. Thereafter, the process consists of driving three hours (to 15% charge level) to the next charging station and charging to 80%. With Tesla’s gen-3 250 kWh superchargers, charging from 15% to 80% takes fifteen minutes, which is a perfect amount of time to go piss and then get some food and coffee. And the Supercharger sites are all located in strip mall parking lots or shopping centers where all of that is easily accomplished. My wife and I did a 9000 mile road trip all over the US in 2019, and it was incredibly easy and fun, thanks to the Supercharger network, which is a huge differentiator.
Another actual BEV owner here…I own a 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range (single motor, RWD). It’s original range was 310 miles, and now after 59,000 miles it’s still charging to 300 miles. I’m originally from metro Detroit and am a UM alum, and I still read the Detroit News Auto section regularly, despite living on the West Coast since the 80’s. It’s been interesting, to say the least, to watch the “big three” respond to the revolution in the auto industry caused by Elon Musk with that crazy startup, Tesla, over the last ten years. First denial, then panic, as Ford and GM realized they had better get in the game before falling too far behind. Now Tesla is pumping out a million cars a year worldwide, has built out the Supercharger charging network across the US Europe and China, and even Joe Biden and Car and Driver magazine are finally acknowledging that a startup American car company exists, whose unmodified vehicles out perform and out-fun classic legacy ICE “noise-makers” like the Mustang, Dodge Charger, and the BMW 3 Series.
Here’s the biggest takeaway for me after owning and driving my BEV for three and a half years: in addition to being much more fun to drive, it’s the TCO (total cost of ownership) that is night and day compared to ICE vehicles. The total maintenance on my Model 3 since July, 2018 consists of a set of tires at 35K miles, two cabin air filters, and a new set of windshield wipers…that’s it! Here’s a TCO comparison for you: I have a season pass at a local ski resort here in SoCal, located 95 miles away and 6600 vertical feet higher than where I live (at sea level). I can drive round trip to the ski resort on a single charge with 60-70 miles range remaining when I return. I charge in my garage overnight at $.09/kWh, using SDG&E’s tiered rates for EV owners, which is dirt cheap. I estimate my round trip costs no more than $8, whereas for my 2022 Hyundai Palisade, that same round trip costs about $45. And if you’re wondering how I like the Palisade, it’s fine, a great car, but it’s my wife’s car and we hardly ever drive it (we got it to tow my little boat, and because we needed a seven passenger vehicle when the grandkids come to town). After six months the Palisade still has less than two thousand miles on it, because we prefer to drive the BEV…it’s much cheaper and more fun to drive!
Right, Sandy Munro is simply an icon of automotive engineering in Detroit. He’s the guy you should be listening to if you want to learn about BEV technology, how it compares to ICE technology, and the design and build quality of the various BEV manufacturers. Go watch his YouTube videos…they’re eye opening. I watched his tear down videos of the Tesla Model 3 back in early 2018, then I bought the car. Best car purchase I’ve ever made.
Ford sold about 28,000 Mach-Es in 2021, while Tesla sold 936,000 BEVs (100% battery electric vehicles) worldwide. All Tesla models have better specs, in terms of efficiency, performance, crash safety and software than the Mach-E, and the Tesla Supercharger network is vastly superior to the third party charging options that Ford relies on. In terms of BEV sales, one could say Ford is about where Tesla was in 2016-2017, or one could say Ford's Mach-E is their current compliance vehicle to meet federal CAFE standards, given that most of their sales are high profit/ low gas mileage ICE pickup trucks. But Ford (and GM) will need to radically revamp their legacy dealership model to compete head to head with Tesla, given that BEVs have a much lower cost of ownership and very little maintenance. And from a fuel expense point of view, the Tesla is much cheaper to drive. Explain? I own a 2018 Tesla Model 3 with 56,000 miles and a 2022 Hyundai Palisade (24 mpg highway). I'm retired and twice a week I drive 190 miles roundtrip to the local ski resort, from sea level to 7000'. That trip costs me about $8 in electricity in my Tesla, because the car does the roundtrip on a single charge, which occurs overnight in my garage when my local electric rates are $.09/kWh, which is dirt cheap. The same trip in my Hyundai costs about $45 in gas here in CA. No comparison, and the Tesla is much more fun to drive!
Same. Life is too short to dedicate four-plus hours watching mostly commercials and hot takes from former jocks on live TV, given that the game consists of four fifteen minute quarters. Being at the game is a different story, it's an immersive experience that includes many other in-stadium activities. But I live 2255 miles from Ann Arbor, so recording it on YouTube TV and watching it a few hours later is the only way I'll watch at this point, with or without a media blackout. Against Sparty, an old high school buddy from metro Detroit broke my media blackout when he texted me a poop emoji four hours in, thereby signaling another Wolverine failure in a rivalry game, news that didn't surprise me one iota. But having watched the game soon afterwards, I came away impressed by our effort, especially the great individual performances by McNamara, All, Anthony, Hutchinson, Ojabo, Moody, etc. But the great stuff we did on the field was overshadowed by the mistakes and turtling we did in the fourth quarter, when once again the wave of defeat broke over us in a rivalry game.
Seven years into the Harbaugh era, the best word for my mental state while watching Michigan football is detachment, "...experiencing our feelings without allowing them to control us." I was a mouth-breathing Wolverine fan for forty-five years who, during most games, my wife could not be in the same house with, but no more. Now I watch after the fact and, whereas I still enjoy our modest successes, I no longer have any expectations that we will win games against our biggest rivals (OSU, MSU, ND), or against any team with a winning record, especially on the road. Harbaugh's teams simply don't rise to the occasion in big games, which is an established fact with seven years of data to back it up. Back in the 20th Century, we used to count our B1G championships and Rose Bowl appearances. Now we're a second tier program that reliably beats up on third tier programs but realistically no longer competes for our own division championship, let alone for our conference. And please spare me the rankings, as our annual trip to the gallows awaits us on November 27.
Wow…. 28 minutes in and watching Honduras dominate the midfield, showing much crisper passing, and scoring a nice goal on the beautiful low header! This US team is the usual disappointment…lackluster, low percentage passing, poor first touches, and no coherent strategy, at least not so far. Brooks looks so slow out there, and Pulisic has ZERO help on the attack. WTF.
Thank you, OP, for this thread! One more small step to help break down the horrible stigma that still hangs over cannabis after all these years of it being associated with hard drugs, thanks to the successful mind-control tactics of the War on Drugs in the 1980s. By any objective research study, cannabis is FAR less harmful to humans than alcoholic beverages. And it has the added benefits of making users LESS belligerent (as opposed to alcohol) and it’s a legit aphrodisiac for us guys!
100% … Blue Dream is also my go-to strain, such amazing sativa-leaning hybrid! Like you, I’m more old-school with my preferred strains: Sour Diesel derivatives, Durban Poison, Super Silver Haze, etc. And like you, I almost exclusively vape raw ground flower… pure, unadulterated natural bud. And I’m in the shape of my life at age 64, including in the midst of section hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Simply stated, vaping raw flower is NOT a big health risk.
What was the name of the diner on South University in the mid-1970’s where you could eat breakfast while Paul Harvey blared on the restaurant’s sound system? That was my jam.
Bummer to see France out of Euro, as they are for me the most fun team to watch in the tournament in terms of raw talent, skills, breakout passing, and explosive finishing. But it's a team sport, and the Swiss simply did a better job of preparation. When it got to penalties, I knew France was toast...I was hopting Lloris could pull another rabbit out of his hat like he did when he stopped the penalty earlier in the game.... but I'm a Spurs fan, so it made perfect sense when he whiffed on all five Swiss penalty shots.
And as such, I’m done trying to get excited for the program until either 1) the next HC is hired, or 2) until our current HC coaches up our routinely second-best recruiting classes in the B1G to a level where they find themselves in the B1G Championship Game (which Sparty has achieved several times this century with far inferior talent from a recruiting point of view).
In what universe has Jim Harbaugh, the $8 million dollar public university football coach, performed his job at the level to deserve a five year contract extension?
C’mon, he’s averaging nine wins per year! (and the vast majority of those wins are against unranked teams and/or teams with losing records. And his record absolutely stinks in bowl games and is historically bad against our #1 rival)
But look, he recruits better than all but one B1G team! (and yet isn’t it strange that he can’t coach up all of these great recruits to the level to even once reach the division championship game in our own conference? And why are so many of our highly touted recruits transferring? What are they saying on their way out the door, and why isn’t this being scrutinized?)
I’ve been around long enough to know this is going to end very badly. The media sharks are circling, a lot of very best talent on the team has transferred, and prospective top recruits are steering clear of our football program (in sharp contrast to our b-ball program). This is a program on life support...unthinkable for this Old Boomer alumni who rode decades of success, and who remembers quite clearly when WE were the dominant team in the Big Ten.
Question: is Michigan football so far gone that the best we can do now is to cling to a washed up coach who was once considered great?
I saw Dylan as an upgraded version of Peters given their similar pro-style measurables: a better decision maker as a sophomore in limited action, equal ability as a downfield passer (both very good, compared to O’Korn and, yes, Patterson), and much quicker on the QB runs than literally anyone in Michigan history save Denard Robinson. The unfortunate injuries were his demise, and yes, he probably contributed to those by not being willing to slide before contact, but I saw that more as his youthful over exuberance in trying to help the team.
Don't be presumptuous. Wait until Ryan Day hangs a 40-50 point spread loss on us, while keeping his foot on the gas until the final whistle. And despite the meltdown in State College, what if Penn State's only win comes at our expense? And did you forget about the Michigan State debacle a few weeks ago? It's a good thing Notre Dame isn't on the schedule this year, because there's no way this defense stops them unless we play them in another raging downpour. And again, it's not the player personnel, it's the coaching. Regarding our standard issue gameplan, the schemes on both sides of the ball are utterly transparent to our opponents, the way to burn us or stop us has already been solved.
But hell yes, we "discovered" a damn good QB - who has been hiding on the bench in plain sight.
Agree, after seeing him pancake guys in the HS Army All-Star game, I adopted him as the guy on the OL I preferred to watch. And Mike did his workman-like job for four years, while most of the hype was for Bredeson, despite Mike's better UFR numbers. But man, watching Mike as a Patriot the other night pushing around the Raven's DL was a real treat!
Nah, first let's dispell the notion that we are as good as the hype generated by the win over the 0-2 Gophers, especially after their loss to Maryland. Second, give Sparty credit for being motivated and ready to play, and give them additional credit for their play on both sides of the ball. They won the battle in the trenches and had a great scheme on defense that we simply couldn't solve. Especially when our OL was pretty much dominated. No, for me the last two OSU games stick out way above this loss as our worst in the Jim Harbaugh/ Don Brown era.
Yeah, Michael Onwenu was the OL I always found myself watching throughout his career at Michigan. Even back in high school in the Army All American game, his freakish wide body and raw power made him stick out like a man among boys. Loved watching him move DLs and flat bulldoze LBs and safeties on the power runs at UM.
In my opinion, thus ends the worst handling of a bonafide great raw QB talent in Michigan history. Harbaugh was supposed to be The Great QB Whisperer. Instead, all he does is bring in second-rate grad transfers, the last two (O'Korn and Patterson) of which have utterly failed the program in almost every big game against teams with winning records (with a couple of exceptions). Instead, McCaffrey got buried in the depth chart, and in fairness, got banged up in mop-up roles, which exacerbated his plight. But it's a damn shame that he was never groomed to step in early and take the reigns, say, by his sophomore season so that he could be established and lead the team for several more years, like so many other rising star QBs in the B1G. No, the stupid and failed grad transfer gimmick keeps getting in the way. Why any blue-chip QB HS recruit would ever play for Harbaugh is a complete mystery to me at this point.
The Michigan career of Dylan McCaffrey is one of the all-time disappointments for me because, IMO, he is the poster child for the negative consequences of bringing in grad transfers over developing and sticking with your QB recruits. A super talented, smart kid of extremely good pedigree with a big, accurate arm who runs fast...IMO, on any other team in the B1G except Ohio State, he would have been the starter by his sophomore season, or sooner on some teams (like Iowa with the less talented Stanley, etc.). Instead, Dylan arrives during the end of the disastrous O'Korn grad transfer, and then Harbaugh promptly brings in another grad transfer, Shea Patterson, who, like O'Korn, underperforms in most of the biggest games he plays at Michigan. No, not as poorly as O'Korn, but still goes down in Michigan history as being the starting QB for the two worst defeats ever to OSU (and yes, Don Brown and his inability to scheme and adapt to stop OSU shares equally in those losses). Instead, McCaffrey rarely sees the field because the grad transfer QB can't put away the teams we should be beating badly. And when he does come in during garbage time, he performs well but keeps getting banged up on QB keepers while trying to get a couple extra yards. So he spends most of his career at Michigan standing on the sidelines, always waiting for his next chance. At least Brandon Peters saw the writing on the wall and had the good sense to transfer to Illinois, where he has had the opportunity to shine and bolster his NFL prospects. It just amazes me that any top high school QB prospect would choose Michigan given Harbaugh's track record of reliance on grad transfers. Go ahead, talk me off the ledge.
American Exceptionalism, “We’re #1”, etc....blah...SMFH!
I’m so effing mad that a big chunk of my fellow Americans and our federal so-called “leadership” continue to PUNT on COVID, and now we can’t have nice things, like college football, international travel, in-classroom school, live music, indoor restaurants, just to name a few!
And yet across the pond, Europe smoothly resumed playing professional sports ten weeks ago, including all of the soccer leagues, which were all able to complete their seasons and now are preparing to start the next season in a few weeks. No COVID shutdowns whatsoever, despite their teams consisting of players from all over the world. So why can they get it done but we CAN’T?
I’ve had a rather nomadic career, having grown up in metro Detroit and lived in five states. For me, my rankings are: California > Colorado > Michigan > Utah > Wyoming. I’m also an outdoorsman, having just bagged Cucamonga Peak (8862’) the other day at age 63. CA is so amazing for its weather (sunny! no humidity! no bugs!) and unlimited diversity of things to do, but it is expensive (SoCal is more affordable than the Bay Area). As for New Mexico, my son lives in Ruidoso, a mountain town roughly midway between Albuquerque and El Paso. My impression of NM is it’s mostly a desert wasteland other than the mountain towns, which like Colorado mountain towns are controlled by Texans and their money.
A final tip of the hat to the Euro leagues for a hugely successful Restart through yesterday’s season ending games! Yes, it was weird at first watching games in empty stadiums, but the quality of play and competition was at the highest level, including some memorable games, like last week’s Liverpool - Chelsea classic.
Pretty average game for Pulisic, some good passes and flashes, but zero shots on goal. Arguably however, starting Pulisic & Mount over Abraham & Willian provided better tactical teamwork up front and linkage through the midfield. But Wolves' team defense is simply too strong to allow Pulisic to make marauding runs through it. As for Pulisic, yes, he's an extraordinary talent. But so are the other world-class forwards on Chelsea, especially when adding the incoming transfers. Regardless, seeing an American excelling in top shelf European football is a breath of fresh air!
Lack of leadership at the federal level is a huge problem for all states, and therefore for all citizens. Having each state independently try to figure out how to handle COVID while the so-called "leaders" in D.C. keep sending dog-whistle messages to their supporters to do the opposite is literally killing people in our country right now. What we needed from the start were strong mandates from the President, who should have been taking his advice from an uncompromised CDC, with no interference from political appointees. Instead, what I see in my diverse state (California) is compliance with protocols (wearing masks, etc.) that closely follows the political distribution of the local communities. I just spent a week in the Bay Area (San Jose/ SF) where literally EVERYONE was wearing a mask on the streets - especially in SF. Compare that to where I live (historically conservative South Orange County), where yesterday I rode my bike along the beach (Doheny) and I was the ONLY person wearing a mask. That this worldwide pandemic ever became a political football in America is the real tragedy of it. So much for American Exceptionalism!
I would expect UM to roll out a hybrid on-campus experience for Fall 2020 semester, where large lectures are offered as distance learning, but where students come in for labs, in particular, simply because one cannot do a chemistry lab from afar. This is the strategy the UC system will be using.
Re: transferring to community college: It’s not that simple... In the case of CA, $18 billion dollars is about to be cut from education in the 2020-2021 state budget (fiscal year starts on July 1), from K-12 to community colleges (CCCs) to CSU to UC. The CA State Chancellor’s Office always applies more funding weight to the UC and K-12 systems, and then CSU and the CCCs get the remaining dollars. So the CCCs will be laying off heavily (salaries comprise 80% of costs) and class offerings will be significantly reduced. So, trying to pick up a transferable course at the community college level may be very difficult.
To me, McCaffery has always appeared to have the skillset to excel at Michigan, but the timing of his injuries absolutely wrecked his upward trajectory. We'd get a glimpse of his speed and big arm, and then a couple of plays later he's being carted off the field after taking a big hit while trying to squeeze out a couple more yards (bad idea). IF he can stay on the field and play smart (DON'T TAKE HITS), in my opinion, he's the guy who could emerge as a very good QB in our system. And he's the guy who may never do much at Michigan (given our ineptitude of developing QBs under Harbaugh) but could show well at the Combine, get picked up late in the draft or signed later, and then continue to develop on a taxi squad and eventually work his way into a role on an NFL team. I mean, the pedigree is definitely there.
No, and honestly I'm glad I live 2300 miles away from Ann Arbor in terms of this discussion. Why? Because I'm an older fan (in my 60s) who dates back to being a student at UM in the mid-70s, when Bo was the coach and the program had only recently reemerged as a national power (1969). And so my fandom rode the upward trajectory with lots of Rose Bowl appearances and some memorable wins in Pasadena, culminating in the 1997 (split) national championship with Lloyd Carr. And no, Bo wasn't a world-beater in the bowl games, but the program was head and shoulders above almost all in the Midwest region, and those truly were the days of the Big Two and Little Eight (or more as the league expanded). Then came the 2000's, and by then the B1G had much more parity, a two-division system, and Lloyd was fading as an effective recruiter and coach, and we fans could see the program starting to slip. But who would have guessed back then that fifteen years and three head coaches later that the program would have failed to win a B1G Championship or even a division championship, and have zero Rose Bowl appearances? And that despite having hired the dream coach for Michigan football on December 30, 2014, that five seasons later the program was only the fourth best team in its own division during that tenure, including having endured the two biggest ass-kickings by Ohio State in our history? So living far away from AA has the benefit of not being in the Michigan "bubble", where the local media coverage of our perpetual on-field disappointments, especially in games against any team with a winning record, is an ongoing gut-wrenching downer for old-timers like me.
A retiree's perspective here...I retired a year ago (April 26, 2019) at age 61, so I'm very fortunate to be riding out the pandemic at home without having to worry about my job or what comes next for those who have been laid off, especially those who had employer-paid health insurance, like my neighbor across the street, who was laid off three weeks ago and whose health insurance ends on April 30. A few days ago, the director for planning and coordinating our county's response to the pandemic submitted his updated plan, and then promptly submitted his letter of resignation and announced his retirement, effective immediately! I can't blame the guy, he had to have been working 80 hours a week the last two months while he watched his retired colleagues and family members sitting at home doing nothing, so he probably decided to join them!
"...Locked down players for three years...", seriously? I don't how many PI flags Hill got this past season as he grabbed WR's who were blowing by him, but it was plenty (someone who charts stats please respond). It seemed like he got slower over his years at Michigan, and my guess is his current 40 time is just too slow in comparison to the other CBs at the Combine, so he waived showing it. The fact is, his best work occurred when he was paired with Jourdan Lewis (2016) and David Long (2017, 2018), maybe because the overall pass defense was so strong that everyone's stats were boosted. So, no, I wasn't surprised at Hill's disappointing draft results, in spite of my fandom!
Both the Stanford study for Santa Clara County and the USC study for LA County came up with similar results, in terms of the percentage of population exposure (roughly 5%). That's still about 30 to 50 times higher than when using numbers of confirmed cases/population in both counties. And then there's the study in Chelsea, Massachusetts, last week where a sample of 200 people randomly selected on the street for Covid-19 antibody testing came in at a whopping 32% positive. That's 600% higher than the rate of infection in California, so the discrepancy between studies needs a lot more 'splaining (reliability of tests, sampling methodologies used, etc.). But the two takeaways for me remain: 1) the death rate of Covid-19 is lower than the CDC first told us (but still very, very deadly for the elderly and/or people with co-morbidities); and 2) achieving herd immunity (>70% of population have antibodies) is impossible without a vaccine. Exposing 330 million Americans to Covid-19 in an effort to reach herd immunity, where several million people would die and all healthcare systems nationwide would collapse from the resulting huge surge of patients is simply not possible.
September 23, 1989, Pasadena, CA: Michigan vs UCLA
I had fifty yard line seats (having bought them scalped), mid-to-high up in the UCLA alumni section, with one of my UM Bursley undergrad roommates (I am class of '79). There were literally no other Michigan fans in our section. UCLA was leading 23-14 in the fourth quarter, having scored with about seven minutes left. Frosh Elvis Grbac then leads us on a long drive and we score a TD and extra point with about a minute left (23-21 UCLA). Then we execute a sensational onside kick, with our guy snagging the high hop in full stride up the sidelines and getting knocked out of bounds at about the UCLA thirty yard line! A couple of great power runs by Leroy Hoard got us down to about the twelve yard line with one timeout and a few seconds remaining. J.D. Carlson then finishes the job with the short field goal as time expired (24-23 Michigan)! My buddy and I went crazy screaming and carrying on throughout the last few minutes of that classic comeback, as everyone around us stared in contempt...it was beautiful!
It's interesting how California can be looked at as two states in terms of coronavirus spread. The first cases were concentrated in Santa Clara County (NorCal) but they really clamped down quicker in the Bay Area compared to SoCal where the new case rate appears to be higher (LA County in particular) than anywhere in NorCal. Here in Orange County where we have large numbers of retirees social distancing is being taken seriously. We've generally had nice weather (sunny in the 60s) the last two weeks, but all public parking lots along the beaches were closed last week to discourage people from hanging out there. And a lot of stores like Target are offering online ordering and parking lot pickup services so one doesn't have to go inside.
Recent Comments
Woe unto you when the foul winds blew on the mistake by the lake.
Well we met reasonable expectations, which was to get to the round of 16. Our team is very talented in the midfield and showed it throughout the tournament.... but other than Pulisic, we really don't have another legit striker. Our defense is just not world class in terms of skills and speed, and eventually good teams will break it down over the course of the game.
Pear Valley Grenache, 2019 (Paso Robles) - delicious!
In Lahaina, Captain Jack’s, the Dirty Monkey, or if you have reciprocity, the Lahaina Yacht Club.
Wrong. January through April are the best months in coastal California, in my opinion. Crystal clear skies (yes, once or twice a month it may rain) and 65 degrees literally every day. Paradise for a golfer, biker, hiker, sailor, and skier.
I’ll be there!
And Stanford, great school to visit, and a fun stadium experience.
COYS! Antonio Conte is the manager of the year, IMO, the way he revived and coached-up a demoralized Spurs team from mid-season to today’s placement in Champions League! And he brought in Kulusevski and Bentancor who made such an impact for Spurs’ attack and control of the midfield!
Loved watching him score those two goals today! And as above, none of his goals were penalties, which I’m wondering if that has ever been done by a Golden Boot winner?
The problem is, Russia's leaders and corrupt oligarchs want to have it both ways. Putin's quest is to recreate the geographic footprint of the Soviet Union as a fascist empire and isolate its citizens in a closed, totalitarian society; and yet he and his billionaire oligarch buddies want to continue to live lavish lifestyles in their Mediterranean villas and cruise their hundred million dollar yachts to stylish Western ports. Europe is saying no, this time you've gone too far: by invading a country whose citizens had a Western-style independent nation and overwhelmingly want self-determination.
If it's a closed society that Russia wants, then fine, the door needs to be closed to its athletes, musicians, and other performers who have enjoyed free access to the rewards of Western culture and lifestyle, but who still support Putin. Supporting Putin is supporting literally thousands of targeted cruise missile and artillery strikes on Ukraine apartment buildings, hospitals, and theatres, where thousands of innocent civilians are now dead, and for which there is absolutely no moral justification.
After watching the Costa Rica game, I’m skeptical that we get out of the group stage. England has a much better team than the last time we faced them in the World Cup in 2010, when the English goalie gave up one of the all-time howlers on a slow rolling shot.
Just to clarify how using the Tesla Supercharger network works, the charging sites are typically spaced about two hundred miles apart on the interstate highway system. So for a cross-country road trip, the only time you’d ever have a full charge is starting from your garage on day one. Thereafter, the process consists of driving three hours (to 15% charge level) to the next charging station and charging to 80%. With Tesla’s gen-3 250 kWh superchargers, charging from 15% to 80% takes fifteen minutes, which is a perfect amount of time to go piss and then get some food and coffee. And the Supercharger sites are all located in strip mall parking lots or shopping centers where all of that is easily accomplished. My wife and I did a 9000 mile road trip all over the US in 2019, and it was incredibly easy and fun, thanks to the Supercharger network, which is a huge differentiator.
Another actual BEV owner here…I own a 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range (single motor, RWD). It’s original range was 310 miles, and now after 59,000 miles it’s still charging to 300 miles. I’m originally from metro Detroit and am a UM alum, and I still read the Detroit News Auto section regularly, despite living on the West Coast since the 80’s. It’s been interesting, to say the least, to watch the “big three” respond to the revolution in the auto industry caused by Elon Musk with that crazy startup, Tesla, over the last ten years. First denial, then panic, as Ford and GM realized they had better get in the game before falling too far behind. Now Tesla is pumping out a million cars a year worldwide, has built out the Supercharger charging network across the US Europe and China, and even Joe Biden and Car and Driver magazine are finally acknowledging that a startup American car company exists, whose unmodified vehicles out perform and out-fun classic legacy ICE “noise-makers” like the Mustang, Dodge Charger, and the BMW 3 Series.
Here’s the biggest takeaway for me after owning and driving my BEV for three and a half years: in addition to being much more fun to drive, it’s the TCO (total cost of ownership) that is night and day compared to ICE vehicles. The total maintenance on my Model 3 since July, 2018 consists of a set of tires at 35K miles, two cabin air filters, and a new set of windshield wipers…that’s it! Here’s a TCO comparison for you: I have a season pass at a local ski resort here in SoCal, located 95 miles away and 6600 vertical feet higher than where I live (at sea level). I can drive round trip to the ski resort on a single charge with 60-70 miles range remaining when I return. I charge in my garage overnight at $.09/kWh, using SDG&E’s tiered rates for EV owners, which is dirt cheap. I estimate my round trip costs no more than $8, whereas for my 2022 Hyundai Palisade, that same round trip costs about $45. And if you’re wondering how I like the Palisade, it’s fine, a great car, but it’s my wife’s car and we hardly ever drive it (we got it to tow my little boat, and because we needed a seven passenger vehicle when the grandkids come to town). After six months the Palisade still has less than two thousand miles on it, because we prefer to drive the BEV…it’s much cheaper and more fun to drive!
Right, Sandy Munro is simply an icon of automotive engineering in Detroit. He’s the guy you should be listening to if you want to learn about BEV technology, how it compares to ICE technology, and the design and build quality of the various BEV manufacturers. Go watch his YouTube videos…they’re eye opening. I watched his tear down videos of the Tesla Model 3 back in early 2018, then I bought the car. Best car purchase I’ve ever made.
Ford sold about 28,000 Mach-Es in 2021, while Tesla sold 936,000 BEVs (100% battery electric vehicles) worldwide. All Tesla models have better specs, in terms of efficiency, performance, crash safety and software than the Mach-E, and the Tesla Supercharger network is vastly superior to the third party charging options that Ford relies on. In terms of BEV sales, one could say Ford is about where Tesla was in 2016-2017, or one could say Ford's Mach-E is their current compliance vehicle to meet federal CAFE standards, given that most of their sales are high profit/ low gas mileage ICE pickup trucks. But Ford (and GM) will need to radically revamp their legacy dealership model to compete head to head with Tesla, given that BEVs have a much lower cost of ownership and very little maintenance. And from a fuel expense point of view, the Tesla is much cheaper to drive. Explain? I own a 2018 Tesla Model 3 with 56,000 miles and a 2022 Hyundai Palisade (24 mpg highway). I'm retired and twice a week I drive 190 miles roundtrip to the local ski resort, from sea level to 7000'. That trip costs me about $8 in electricity in my Tesla, because the car does the roundtrip on a single charge, which occurs overnight in my garage when my local electric rates are $.09/kWh, which is dirt cheap. The same trip in my Hyundai costs about $45 in gas here in CA. No comparison, and the Tesla is much more fun to drive!
Sure looks like bringing in Mike Hart was a home run for our running game.
Same. Life is too short to dedicate four-plus hours watching mostly commercials and hot takes from former jocks on live TV, given that the game consists of four fifteen minute quarters. Being at the game is a different story, it's an immersive experience that includes many other in-stadium activities. But I live 2255 miles from Ann Arbor, so recording it on YouTube TV and watching it a few hours later is the only way I'll watch at this point, with or without a media blackout. Against Sparty, an old high school buddy from metro Detroit broke my media blackout when he texted me a poop emoji four hours in, thereby signaling another Wolverine failure in a rivalry game, news that didn't surprise me one iota. But having watched the game soon afterwards, I came away impressed by our effort, especially the great individual performances by McNamara, All, Anthony, Hutchinson, Ojabo, Moody, etc. But the great stuff we did on the field was overshadowed by the mistakes and turtling we did in the fourth quarter, when once again the wave of defeat broke over us in a rivalry game.
Seven years into the Harbaugh era, the best word for my mental state while watching Michigan football is detachment, "...experiencing our feelings without allowing them to control us." I was a mouth-breathing Wolverine fan for forty-five years who, during most games, my wife could not be in the same house with, but no more. Now I watch after the fact and, whereas I still enjoy our modest successes, I no longer have any expectations that we will win games against our biggest rivals (OSU, MSU, ND), or against any team with a winning record, especially on the road. Harbaugh's teams simply don't rise to the occasion in big games, which is an established fact with seven years of data to back it up. Back in the 20th Century, we used to count our B1G championships and Rose Bowl appearances. Now we're a second tier program that reliably beats up on third tier programs but realistically no longer competes for our own division championship, let alone for our conference. And please spare me the rankings, as our annual trip to the gallows awaits us on November 27.
Honduras putting on a clinic on how to press and tackle aggressively. US has no answer to the Honduras high press, we’re completely unprepared!
Wow…. 28 minutes in and watching Honduras dominate the midfield, showing much crisper passing, and scoring a nice goal on the beautiful low header! This US team is the usual disappointment…lackluster, low percentage passing, poor first touches, and no coherent strategy, at least not so far. Brooks looks so slow out there, and Pulisic has ZERO help on the attack. WTF.
Thank you, OP, for this thread! One more small step to help break down the horrible stigma that still hangs over cannabis after all these years of it being associated with hard drugs, thanks to the successful mind-control tactics of the War on Drugs in the 1980s. By any objective research study, cannabis is FAR less harmful to humans than alcoholic beverages. And it has the added benefits of making users LESS belligerent (as opposed to alcohol) and it’s a legit aphrodisiac for us guys!
100% … Blue Dream is also my go-to strain, such amazing sativa-leaning hybrid! Like you, I’m more old-school with my preferred strains: Sour Diesel derivatives, Durban Poison, Super Silver Haze, etc. And like you, I almost exclusively vape raw ground flower… pure, unadulterated natural bud. And I’m in the shape of my life at age 64, including in the midst of section hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Simply stated, vaping raw flower is NOT a big health risk.
What was the name of the diner on South University in the mid-1970’s where you could eat breakfast while Paul Harvey blared on the restaurant’s sound system? That was my jam.
Bummer to see France out of Euro, as they are for me the most fun team to watch in the tournament in terms of raw talent, skills, breakout passing, and explosive finishing. But it's a team sport, and the Swiss simply did a better job of preparation. When it got to penalties, I knew France was toast...I was hopting Lloris could pull another rabbit out of his hat like he did when he stopped the penalty earlier in the game.... but I'm a Spurs fan, so it made perfect sense when he whiffed on all five Swiss penalty shots.
And as such, I’m done trying to get excited for the program until either 1) the next HC is hired, or 2) until our current HC coaches up our routinely second-best recruiting classes in the B1G to a level where they find themselves in the B1G Championship Game (which Sparty has achieved several times this century with far inferior talent from a recruiting point of view).
In what…
Oh Hell No.
In what universe has Jim Harbaugh, the $8 million dollar public university football coach, performed his job at the level to deserve a five year contract extension?
C’mon, he’s averaging nine wins per year! (and the vast majority of those wins are against unranked teams and/or teams with losing records. And his record absolutely stinks in bowl games and is historically bad against our #1 rival)
But look, he recruits better than all but one B1G team! (and yet isn’t it strange that he can’t coach up all of these great recruits to the level to even once reach the division championship game in our own conference? And why are so many of our highly touted recruits transferring? What are they saying on their way out the door, and why isn’t this being scrutinized?)
I’ve been around long enough to know this is going to end very badly. The media sharks are circling, a lot of very best talent on the team has transferred, and prospective top recruits are steering clear of our football program (in sharp contrast to our b-ball program). This is a program on life support...unthinkable for this Old Boomer alumni who rode decades of success, and who remembers quite clearly when WE were the dominant team in the Big Ten.
Question: is Michigan football so far gone that the best we can do now is to cling to a washed up coach who was once considered great?
Did you mean Charles Matthews?
I saw Dylan as an upgraded version of Peters given their similar pro-style measurables: a better decision maker as a sophomore in limited action, equal ability as a downfield passer (both very good, compared to O’Korn and, yes, Patterson), and much quicker on the QB runs than literally anyone in Michigan history save Denard Robinson. The unfortunate injuries were his demise, and yes, he probably contributed to those by not being willing to slide before contact, but I saw that more as his youthful over exuberance in trying to help the team.
"Since Harbaugh is not going to be fired..."
Don't be presumptuous. Wait until Ryan Day hangs a 40-50 point spread loss on us, while keeping his foot on the gas until the final whistle. And despite the meltdown in State College, what if Penn State's only win comes at our expense? And did you forget about the Michigan State debacle a few weeks ago? It's a good thing Notre Dame isn't on the schedule this year, because there's no way this defense stops them unless we play them in another raging downpour. And again, it's not the player personnel, it's the coaching. Regarding our standard issue gameplan, the schemes on both sides of the ball are utterly transparent to our opponents, the way to burn us or stop us has already been solved.
But hell yes, we "discovered" a damn good QB - who has been hiding on the bench in plain sight.
#FireJimTwoYearsAgo
Agree, after seeing him pancake guys in the HS Army All-Star game, I adopted him as the guy on the OL I preferred to watch. And Mike did his workman-like job for four years, while most of the hype was for Bredeson, despite Mike's better UFR numbers. But man, watching Mike as a Patriot the other night pushing around the Raven's DL was a real treat!
Nah, first let's dispell the notion that we are as good as the hype generated by the win over the 0-2 Gophers, especially after their loss to Maryland. Second, give Sparty credit for being motivated and ready to play, and give them additional credit for their play on both sides of the ball. They won the battle in the trenches and had a great scheme on defense that we simply couldn't solve. Especially when our OL was pretty much dominated. No, for me the last two OSU games stick out way above this loss as our worst in the Jim Harbaugh/ Don Brown era.
On a related topic, here’s a link to a great philosophical discussion, “The Information Crisis”, between Chris Hayes and David Roberts.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/51PjHwaY38dYAizkD079Rd?si=0Vsmo-aeTRGIGBfUUGqkSQ
Yeah, Michael Onwenu was the OL I always found myself watching throughout his career at Michigan. Even back in high school in the Army All American game, his freakish wide body and raw power made him stick out like a man among boys. Loved watching him move DLs and flat bulldoze LBs and safeties on the power runs at UM.
In my opinion, thus ends the worst handling of a bonafide great raw QB talent in Michigan history. Harbaugh was supposed to be The Great QB Whisperer. Instead, all he does is bring in second-rate grad transfers, the last two (O'Korn and Patterson) of which have utterly failed the program in almost every big game against teams with winning records (with a couple of exceptions). Instead, McCaffrey got buried in the depth chart, and in fairness, got banged up in mop-up roles, which exacerbated his plight. But it's a damn shame that he was never groomed to step in early and take the reigns, say, by his sophomore season so that he could be established and lead the team for several more years, like so many other rising star QBs in the B1G. No, the stupid and failed grad transfer gimmick keeps getting in the way. Why any blue-chip QB HS recruit would ever play for Harbaugh is a complete mystery to me at this point.
The Michigan career of Dylan McCaffrey is one of the all-time disappointments for me because, IMO, he is the poster child for the negative consequences of bringing in grad transfers over developing and sticking with your QB recruits. A super talented, smart kid of extremely good pedigree with a big, accurate arm who runs fast...IMO, on any other team in the B1G except Ohio State, he would have been the starter by his sophomore season, or sooner on some teams (like Iowa with the less talented Stanley, etc.). Instead, Dylan arrives during the end of the disastrous O'Korn grad transfer, and then Harbaugh promptly brings in another grad transfer, Shea Patterson, who, like O'Korn, underperforms in most of the biggest games he plays at Michigan. No, not as poorly as O'Korn, but still goes down in Michigan history as being the starting QB for the two worst defeats ever to OSU (and yes, Don Brown and his inability to scheme and adapt to stop OSU shares equally in those losses). Instead, McCaffrey rarely sees the field because the grad transfer QB can't put away the teams we should be beating badly. And when he does come in during garbage time, he performs well but keeps getting banged up on QB keepers while trying to get a couple extra yards. So he spends most of his career at Michigan standing on the sidelines, always waiting for his next chance. At least Brandon Peters saw the writing on the wall and had the good sense to transfer to Illinois, where he has had the opportunity to shine and bolster his NFL prospects. It just amazes me that any top high school QB prospect would choose Michigan given Harbaugh's track record of reliance on grad transfers. Go ahead, talk me off the ledge.
American Exceptionalism, “We’re #1”, etc....blah...SMFH!
I’m so effing mad that a big chunk of my fellow Americans and our federal so-called “leadership” continue to PUNT on COVID, and now we can’t have nice things, like college football, international travel, in-classroom school, live music, indoor restaurants, just to name a few!
And yet across the pond, Europe smoothly resumed playing professional sports ten weeks ago, including all of the soccer leagues, which were all able to complete their seasons and now are preparing to start the next season in a few weeks. No COVID shutdowns whatsoever, despite their teams consisting of players from all over the world. So why can they get it done but we CAN’T?
FREEDUMB!!
I’ve had a rather nomadic career, having grown up in metro Detroit and lived in five states. For me, my rankings are: California > Colorado > Michigan > Utah > Wyoming. I’m also an outdoorsman, having just bagged Cucamonga Peak (8862’) the other day at age 63. CA is so amazing for its weather (sunny! no humidity! no bugs!) and unlimited diversity of things to do, but it is expensive (SoCal is more affordable than the Bay Area). As for New Mexico, my son lives in Ruidoso, a mountain town roughly midway between Albuquerque and El Paso. My impression of NM is it’s mostly a desert wasteland other than the mountain towns, which like Colorado mountain towns are controlled by Texans and their money.
A final tip of the hat to the Euro leagues for a hugely successful Restart through yesterday’s season ending games! Yes, it was weird at first watching games in empty stadiums, but the quality of play and competition was at the highest level, including some memorable games, like last week’s Liverpool - Chelsea classic.
Pretty average game for Pulisic, some good passes and flashes, but zero shots on goal. Arguably however, starting Pulisic & Mount over Abraham & Willian provided better tactical teamwork up front and linkage through the midfield. But Wolves' team defense is simply too strong to allow Pulisic to make marauding runs through it. As for Pulisic, yes, he's an extraordinary talent. But so are the other world-class forwards on Chelsea, especially when adding the incoming transfers. Regardless, seeing an American excelling in top shelf European football is a breath of fresh air!
Lack of leadership at the federal level is a huge problem for all states, and therefore for all citizens. Having each state independently try to figure out how to handle COVID while the so-called "leaders" in D.C. keep sending dog-whistle messages to their supporters to do the opposite is literally killing people in our country right now. What we needed from the start were strong mandates from the President, who should have been taking his advice from an uncompromised CDC, with no interference from political appointees. Instead, what I see in my diverse state (California) is compliance with protocols (wearing masks, etc.) that closely follows the political distribution of the local communities. I just spent a week in the Bay Area (San Jose/ SF) where literally EVERYONE was wearing a mask on the streets - especially in SF. Compare that to where I live (historically conservative South Orange County), where yesterday I rode my bike along the beach (Doheny) and I was the ONLY person wearing a mask. That this worldwide pandemic ever became a political football in America is the real tragedy of it. So much for American Exceptionalism!
I would expect UM to roll out a hybrid on-campus experience for Fall 2020 semester, where large lectures are offered as distance learning, but where students come in for labs, in particular, simply because one cannot do a chemistry lab from afar. This is the strategy the UC system will be using.
It’s not just about the body count. This virus is a nasty piece of work that keeps delivering new surprises:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html?type=styln-live-updates&label=new%20york&index=2&action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage#link-13e34c72
Re: transferring to community college: It’s not that simple... In the case of CA, $18 billion dollars is about to be cut from education in the 2020-2021 state budget (fiscal year starts on July 1), from K-12 to community colleges (CCCs) to CSU to UC. The CA State Chancellor’s Office always applies more funding weight to the UC and K-12 systems, and then CSU and the CCCs get the remaining dollars. So the CCCs will be laying off heavily (salaries comprise 80% of costs) and class offerings will be significantly reduced. So, trying to pick up a transferable course at the community college level may be very difficult.
To me, McCaffery has always appeared to have the skillset to excel at Michigan, but the timing of his injuries absolutely wrecked his upward trajectory. We'd get a glimpse of his speed and big arm, and then a couple of plays later he's being carted off the field after taking a big hit while trying to squeeze out a couple more yards (bad idea). IF he can stay on the field and play smart (DON'T TAKE HITS), in my opinion, he's the guy who could emerge as a very good QB in our system. And he's the guy who may never do much at Michigan (given our ineptitude of developing QBs under Harbaugh) but could show well at the Combine, get picked up late in the draft or signed later, and then continue to develop on a taxi squad and eventually work his way into a role on an NFL team. I mean, the pedigree is definitely there.
No, and honestly I'm glad I live 2300 miles away from Ann Arbor in terms of this discussion. Why? Because I'm an older fan (in my 60s) who dates back to being a student at UM in the mid-70s, when Bo was the coach and the program had only recently reemerged as a national power (1969). And so my fandom rode the upward trajectory with lots of Rose Bowl appearances and some memorable wins in Pasadena, culminating in the 1997 (split) national championship with Lloyd Carr. And no, Bo wasn't a world-beater in the bowl games, but the program was head and shoulders above almost all in the Midwest region, and those truly were the days of the Big Two and Little Eight (or more as the league expanded). Then came the 2000's, and by then the B1G had much more parity, a two-division system, and Lloyd was fading as an effective recruiter and coach, and we fans could see the program starting to slip. But who would have guessed back then that fifteen years and three head coaches later that the program would have failed to win a B1G Championship or even a division championship, and have zero Rose Bowl appearances? And that despite having hired the dream coach for Michigan football on December 30, 2014, that five seasons later the program was only the fourth best team in its own division during that tenure, including having endured the two biggest ass-kickings by Ohio State in our history? So living far away from AA has the benefit of not being in the Michigan "bubble", where the local media coverage of our perpetual on-field disappointments, especially in games against any team with a winning record, is an ongoing gut-wrenching downer for old-timers like me.
A retiree's perspective here...I retired a year ago (April 26, 2019) at age 61, so I'm very fortunate to be riding out the pandemic at home without having to worry about my job or what comes next for those who have been laid off, especially those who had employer-paid health insurance, like my neighbor across the street, who was laid off three weeks ago and whose health insurance ends on April 30. A few days ago, the director for planning and coordinating our county's response to the pandemic submitted his updated plan, and then promptly submitted his letter of resignation and announced his retirement, effective immediately! I can't blame the guy, he had to have been working 80 hours a week the last two months while he watched his retired colleagues and family members sitting at home doing nothing, so he probably decided to join them!
"...Locked down players for three years...", seriously? I don't how many PI flags Hill got this past season as he grabbed WR's who were blowing by him, but it was plenty (someone who charts stats please respond). It seemed like he got slower over his years at Michigan, and my guess is his current 40 time is just too slow in comparison to the other CBs at the Combine, so he waived showing it. The fact is, his best work occurred when he was paired with Jourdan Lewis (2016) and David Long (2017, 2018), maybe because the overall pass defense was so strong that everyone's stats were boosted. So, no, I wasn't surprised at Hill's disappointing draft results, in spite of my fandom!
Super surprised some team hasn't taken him solely on his punt return ability, which, IMO, was his best stuff at Michigan.
Both the Stanford study for Santa Clara County and the USC study for LA County came up with similar results, in terms of the percentage of population exposure (roughly 5%). That's still about 30 to 50 times higher than when using numbers of confirmed cases/population in both counties. And then there's the study in Chelsea, Massachusetts, last week where a sample of 200 people randomly selected on the street for Covid-19 antibody testing came in at a whopping 32% positive. That's 600% higher than the rate of infection in California, so the discrepancy between studies needs a lot more 'splaining (reliability of tests, sampling methodologies used, etc.). But the two takeaways for me remain: 1) the death rate of Covid-19 is lower than the CDC first told us (but still very, very deadly for the elderly and/or people with co-morbidities); and 2) achieving herd immunity (>70% of population have antibodies) is impossible without a vaccine. Exposing 330 million Americans to Covid-19 in an effort to reach herd immunity, where several million people would die and all healthcare systems nationwide would collapse from the resulting huge surge of patients is simply not possible.
September 23, 1989, Pasadena, CA: Michigan vs UCLA
I had fifty yard line seats (having bought them scalped), mid-to-high up in the UCLA alumni section, with one of my UM Bursley undergrad roommates (I am class of '79). There were literally no other Michigan fans in our section. UCLA was leading 23-14 in the fourth quarter, having scored with about seven minutes left. Frosh Elvis Grbac then leads us on a long drive and we score a TD and extra point with about a minute left (23-21 UCLA). Then we execute a sensational onside kick, with our guy snagging the high hop in full stride up the sidelines and getting knocked out of bounds at about the UCLA thirty yard line! A couple of great power runs by Leroy Hoard got us down to about the twelve yard line with one timeout and a few seconds remaining. J.D. Carlson then finishes the job with the short field goal as time expired (24-23 Michigan)! My buddy and I went crazy screaming and carrying on throughout the last few minutes of that classic comeback, as everyone around us stared in contempt...it was beautiful!
It's interesting how California can be looked at as two states in terms of coronavirus spread. The first cases were concentrated in Santa Clara County (NorCal) but they really clamped down quicker in the Bay Area compared to SoCal where the new case rate appears to be higher (LA County in particular) than anywhere in NorCal. Here in Orange County where we have large numbers of retirees social distancing is being taken seriously. We've generally had nice weather (sunny in the 60s) the last two weeks, but all public parking lots along the beaches were closed last week to discourage people from hanging out there. And a lot of stores like Target are offering online ordering and parking lot pickup services so one doesn't have to go inside.