Sports
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Go Crimson Quaker Gaucho Blue Devils
Seems like all my favorite college hoops teams are playing in tournaments. Harvard’s Crimson go up against Appalachian State tonight in the CIT. UCSB’s Gauchos are the 15th seed in the NCAA Men’s Midwest bracket, a checkbox win for #2 seed Ohio State on Friday night. The Quakers of my alma mater, Guilford College, are Continue reading
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Not a medal, but still an Olympic win
Anything look familiar about the ice crystals on NBC’s Vancouver Olympics bumper screens (some of which float behind Bob Costas’ head when he sits talking at his desk)? You can see the originals here. They were shot at our apartment near Boston one year ago, on a morning when it was way below freezing outside, Continue reading
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Dats love
Sez Dave (now back in Metsland), “As the 1969 Mets undid the betrayal of NY fans by the Dodgers, the Saints give hope to a city that was betrayed in so many ways.” Exactly. And let’s not forget the betrayal of NY fans by the Giants too. Losing both was a double-whammy for me as Continue reading
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Heavy Whether
Chris Daly posts a 1995 essay he wrote for the Atlantic, recalling almost exactly the experience I had as a kid growing up and skating on ponds in the winter. An excerpt: When I was a boy skating on Brooks Pond, there were almost no grown-ups around. Once or twice a year, on a weekend Continue reading
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Ice stories
For most of Winter in the Northeast, skating is possible only during the somewhat rare times when the ice is thick and not covered with snow or other unwelcome surface conditions. And bad skating has been the story, typically, for most of this Winter around Boston. After an earlier snow, there were some ad hoc Continue reading
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Wintry mixing
I grew up on our town’s best hill for sledding. After a good snowfall, the town would sometimes block the steet so kids from all over could ride down the hill. The top was steep, but there was a long flat straight-away at the bottom. We used to compete to see who went fastest, and Continue reading
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Skiing is believing
The shot above is a pano taken by The Kid with my iPhone, which isn’t good for much else here in Switzerland. (Click here or on the shot to see the original, including larger sizes.) On the left is the Matterhorn, which may be the most impressive mountain on Earth. It’s hard to imagine more Continue reading
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Whitman wins
I am the teacher of atheletes. He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own. He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. — Walt Whitman That’s what came to mind when I heard that Denver beat New England today. Rookie Broncos Continue reading
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Good broadcasting sports
I like sports, and I enjoy sports talk radio. That’s one reason I have five car radio buttons set on stations carrying games or sports talk: four on AM (WRKO/680, WEEI/850, WAMG/890, WZZN/1510) and one on FM (WBZ-FM/98.5). The other is that sports talk is about 50% advertising, so I like to punch around. But Continue reading
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WQXR goes to WNYC, WBCN leaves FM dial
Heard this morning on WNYC that the New York Times has unloaded its remaining broadcasting asset, which consists of the channel and facilities of WQXR, which has been a classical music landmark for as long as it’s been around. (One way or another, since 1929. Wikipedia tells the long story well.) The story on WNYC’s Continue reading
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We’re gonna need a bigger boat
WebTV was way ahead of its time and exactly backwards. The idea was to put the Web on TV. In the prevailing media framework of the time, this made complete sense. TV had been around since the Forties, and nearly everybody devoted many hours of their daily lives to it. The Web was brand new Continue reading
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Looking over St. Louis
Got these shots of St. Louis and the convergence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers while flying to Austin by way of Chicago two Fridays ago. You can see the Gateway Arch, right of center, Busch Stadium, the Edward Jones Dome, the City Museum, and lots of barge traffic on the river. I actually didn’t Continue reading
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Wanted: à la carte HDTV
So our Verizon FiOS home bill has been about $160/month. We were looking to chop that down a bit when I called Verizon this morning. To put it as simply as possible, it’s complicated. What I care about most is keeping the 20/20Mbps down/up Internet service. That’s $69.99/mo. What I don’t care about is POTS, Continue reading
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On not skiing
Shows here in EdHat that there’s snow on Mount Baldy. That means there’s skiing in Los Angeles. Or close enough. Mt. Baldy is the highest point in the San Gabriel Mountains, which overlook Los Angeles from the North. Imagine a 10,064 mountain on Staten Island and you get the picture. Skiing on Mt. Baldy is Continue reading
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The making of an icon
I’ve always liked cars. Never owned a great one, unless you count an ’85 Camry that ran forever with the fewest possible repairs. I did have a hand in my wife’s purchase of a ’92 Infiniti Q45a — a fabulous piece of work, sadly dulled by the maker in subsequent models. It was sadly repair-prone Continue reading
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Cruising over Cornwall
Got some nice pictures of the Cornwall Coast, while still ascending out of Heathrow en route to Washington and Boston. The shot above is of Padstow Bay, with Trebetherick and the Polzeaths on the right, above Padstow and Daymer Bays. (The latter is the lower, or southern, one.) Interesting to see how the surf hits Continue reading
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Flying long
My sister Jan put up a nice photo series of our Aunt Grace Apgar, flying with our cousin Mark Crissman. Grace is 95 and doesn’t look or act a day over… hell, pick a number. Make it a low one. Her mom lived to 107, and Grace is in better shape at 95 than Grandma Continue reading
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The mathematics of legislation
A couple years ago a former high U.S. govenrment official — one whose job required meeting with nearly every member of Congress — made the best argument I have yet heard against any regulation of the Net. Or of anything technical. Though not veratim, this is essentially what he said: I can tell you that Continue reading