Category Archives: KC Chiefs

February 5, 2020 · 23:28

This Reality Has Some Serious Continuity Flaws

Can’t make this shit up folks.

Trump got acquitted today, as expected. It’s incredibly disappointing and depressing and it sucks to be watching the death of the great American experiment as we sink into authoritarianism under a fascist, criminal regime – but that’s a rant for another day.

Here’s the thing…

Turning on the 11PM local news tonight, four stations (CBS, NBC, ABC, and KTLA) the #1 news story of the night, the lead, the biggest news that they’re ALL going to spend the first five minutes talking about was…

…the death of Kirk Douglas.

Okay, it’s Hollywood, La-La Land. We’ll cut them some slack, maybe? The impeachment will be second, right?

Nope. Some of them had the coronavirus scare #2 (a Korean air liner had to divert to LA because people on board had been exposed) and a local measles outbreak #3 (the irony is delicious and lost on them, running back to back stories about a panic over a 100% preventable disease like measles vs the coronavirus, which could be a humanity killing pandemic or just another false alarm that kills in ten years fewer people than die from car accidents in the US in a week), and some had the measles and then the coronavirus, but NONE of them had the impeachment acquittal.

Story #4 after the second commercial break seemed to be all over the place – a murder here, a freeze warning there…

This is how we’ve been worn down and beaten into submission by the Trump cult. Something that would have been the “Story of the Decade!” in another decade isn’t even reported in this one.

Geez, the LEAST they could have done is shown the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade as the #2 or #3 story! If you’ve done the measles story, just do “Coronavirus – ditto!” and move on to something good!!

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Moral Outrage, Politics

February 3, 2020 · 23:30

Super Bowl Champions Monday

We won.

There was BBQ at our house because, well… Kansas City! BBQ! Duh!

(Click to enlarge.)

There was some tension being behind by ten points with only about eight minutes left – but you have seen us play, right? Like, really?

There was champagne that we had been saving for a special occasion, and they don’t get just a whole lot more special than this.

There was hanging out and celebrating and watching Andy Reid get his awards and Patrick Mahomes get his and everyone else looking at wedding pictures.

See you next year, same time, same place – back to back!

(And pitchers and catchers report in eight days…)

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, Panorama, Photography, Sports, Video

February 2, 2020 · 13:06

Super Bowl Sunday

I might be a bit busy and preoccupied later today, so let me get this out there for everyone now, an hour and a half before game time.

We’re ready.

(Click to enlarge so you can see the signed Len Dawson photo in the corner…)

The BBQ and the guests will be here soon.

It’s going to be a good day. I hope yours is too.

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs

January 23, 2020 · 23:37

Yes, I Know

Yesterday I wrote briefly about the glee brought into my life by realizing how much it bothers many Oakland Raiders fans (or are they Las Vegas Raiders fans now? has the front office evacuated Northern California? I digress) that the Chiefs are going to beat meet the 49ers in the Super Bowl.

Folks have pointed out that the joy derived from the misery of others is called “schadenfreude.”

Yes. I know.

I don’t get to taste the sweet nectar of the schadenfreude often, but I drink deeply and enjoy when I do!

(And yes, you’re still getting just little snippets to prove I’m still alive because I’m still slightly busier than god…)

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January 22, 2020 · 23:59

A Joyful Perspective

Chiefs fans are having a good time these days, wallowing in anticipation after fifty years of waiting for another Super Bowl appearance.

Tonight while watching the Australian Open on ESPN, the commentators were filling time during some delay and the topic of the tournament timing came up. Specifically, it’s a week later than normal apparently and that means they’ll be on a long flight home while the Super Bowl is being played and they’re hoping that the flight has high-speed internet so they can watch. Then they got to chatting about who they liked in the game.

The first guy (possibly Patrick McEnroe, maybe?) likes the Chiefs.

The other guy (no idea who it might be) bemoaned the fact that he was a Raiders fan. This is a nightmare Super Bowl for Raiders fans. Their division rival, the Chiefs (who, I might add, have beaten the Raiders something like nine games in a row, muuwaaahahaaaa!!) are playing the San Francisco 49ers, their geographic rival from across the Bay.

I hadn’t thought of that. Not only are we there, but the Raiders fans are doubly miserable!

I don’t much like Raiders fans as a group. There are no doubt many that are charming folks, but as a group? Hate ’em.

It’s petty. I’ll admit it. I’m still going to enjoy it a great deal.

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January 19, 2020 · 21:46

That Was A Lot Of Adrenaline

I hate my brain sometimes.

On Friday I wrote about the SpaceX Launch Abort flight that they were going to try to fly this weekend. I mentioned how it was scheduled for way too damn early on the West Coast, but thanks to social media I knew that the schedule had been pushed back from about 04:00 to about 07:30 or so. I’m normally awake by then, so I turned off my alarms. Then when the Saturday morning launch attempt got scrubbed completely, I saw that update almost immediately when I woke up – so I went back to sleep.

They rescheduled for this morning, but later, about 05:30. Even though I didn’t have any alarms set, my idiot brain got me up anyway, only to find that there was another weather delay, this time until about 07:00. I went back to sleep, only to have my smartass brain wake me up then.

The good news is that the test was an amazing success. About eighty seconds into the launch, traveling at about Mach 2.2 (I’m remembering these figures from my sleepy state this morning, they might be off by a tad), the Dragon spacecraft commanded the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to shut down and then fired the escape rockets. It worked perfectly! The Dragon separated, took off like a bat out of hell, then re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and deployed the parachutes, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean about 40 km off shore.

That was fantastic! Here’s to hoping that we’re now within mere weeks of once again launching American crews into space from American soil on American rockets. (That’s not jingoistic, it’s begging for redundant systems for a critical component of human space flight. If there’s only one way to get to orbit and back and something happens to that one thing, you’re screwed. Right now that only one way is on a Russian Soyuz. It had a launch abort last year and there were concerns that we might have to evacuate the ISS when the next crew rotation came up. Plus there’s that whole “political thing” with the Russians trying to overthrow our government…)

Then this afternoon my beloved Kansas City Chiefs played for the Conference Championship and the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl in two weeks.

The Chiefs played in Super Bowl I (and lost) and in Super Bowl IV (and won). Since then, fifty long years, it’s been nada. Zilch. Zip. Bupkis. Last year we were within minutes or seconds of winning the Championship game, only to let the opportunity slip away.

In today’s game we again fell behind early. Last week it was 24-0 before we got on track, this week not so bad but still down 17-7. But as we did last week, we hit our stride, got our game in gear, and ended up kicking ass and winning.

In both the launch and the game there was a LOT of adrenaline spent. It was “happy adrenaline,” not that “oh shit, there’s a cheetah behind me” kind. For that I’m grateful, but for now I’m crashing as that particular hormone burns it way out of my system.

I’ve never in my life been more happy to have a holiday coming up tomorrow. I’m freaking exhausted.

But happy. Happy exhausted.

We play the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl in Miami on February 2nd. Well before summer, we’ll see a crew going to ISS on a SpaceX Dragon.

50 years between Super Bowls for the Chiefs.

9 years between crewed flights out of Florida.

WTFL (Way Too Freakin’ Long) in both cases, but the light at the end of the tunnel is there!

 

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Space, Sports

January 13, 2020 · 21:45

What A Ride

It’s not a secret that I’m a huge fan of the Kansas City Chiefs. Remember Christmas 2018 when we went on a road trip to Seattle and KC to watch them? And we saw them play the Chargers and the Rams in Los Angeles last year?

This has been a bit of a roller coaster year, with our MVP quarterback being hurt for several games. We lost four of five games in the middle of the season, but came on strong in the second half and finished 12-4, and even managed to squeak into the #2 spot in the standings and getting a bye in the first week of the playoffs.

Then came yesterday…

Many bad words were uttered as we gave up long touchdown passes, blocked punts, and muffed kickoffs. MANY bad words.

My indomitable faith in the team was rewarded when they came back with the biggest, most spectacular, most amazing comeback quarter of football in the history of the game. Not a comeback from 24 points down in a game – they did it in ONE QUARTER.

Then they kept me calm and my blood pressure down by keeping the pedal to the metal.

Yes, it’s no secret at the office that I’m a Chiefs fan – we have a healthy football culture in the office with fans of teams from all over the league. So, yes, everyone in the office wanted to talk about THAT game.

Next weekend, don’t bother me between noon and 15:00. I’ll be preoccupied.

And with luck we’ll get to host one hell of a party on February 2nd.

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Sports

October 25, 2019 · 23:28

Someplace Special – October 25th

From our trip last December, the final game of the regular season for the Kansas City Chiefs, against the hated Oakland Raiders.

It was cold. The crowd was ***LOUD***! We stomped them, 35-3.

We got to see four games last year. Two in LA, one in Seattle, and this game in KC. This year we’re highly unlikely to get to any games since the Chargers’ “home game” against the Chiefs is in Mexico City next month.

Arrowhead Stadium is a holy place to a lifelong Chiefs fan.

Truly somewhere special!

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports, Travel

September 11, 2019 · 23:38

First Do No Harm

Fog.

Confused. Lost. Angry. Frustrated. Directionless.

Maybe it’s the anniversary. Maybe it’s today’s news. Maybe it’s all of that and more.

It’s a roller coaster. Some long-term battles have been won. Some decisions and deadlines are coming like a runaway freight train.

What to do?

Take a deep breath. Pause. Nothing needs to be done this second. Let the gut unclench a bit. A memory comes. A piece of advice, shining dimly through the fog of confusion like the most distant of beacons.

“First – do no harm.”

So instead of angst & fog and confusion, let’s share some pictures from our Sunday BBQ. It was a nice gathering. There were some old favorites and some new adventures on the grill. The gas held out juuuuuuuuust long enough to finish.

It all came out well, even the adventures. More experimentation and experience is needed on the tri-tip. Practice, practice, practice.

The season started to the sacred BBQ vestments were brought out of storage. I was having a good time…

…and not thinking about fog. Or the news. Or decisions.

Somewhere in the middle is a path.

Somewhere in the fog.

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Paul

November 20, 2018 · 23:59

Monday Night Football

If you don’t follow sports, or if you’re not in the US and just don’t follow US pro football, you may or may not know that last night’s Monday Night Football game was an instant classic, being labeled by many as one of the greatest regular season games in history. But you might not care, so feel free to ignore today’s rant!

“I’m out of the office at 2:30, go to NoHo, Red Line to 7th Street/Metro Center, Metro Line to USC – should be there about 4:30” – 11/18/2018 text message to The Younger Daughter

“No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy” – Helmuth von Moltke, 19th century head of the Prussian army

It was much closer to 3:00 before I left the office. The freeway onramp at DeSoto was blocked by an accident. I tried to get to the Winnetka onramp, only to find a few thousand other folks had the same idea. It took twenty minutes or so to work my way through the side streets down to the Reseda onramp. Free sailing until I got to the Universal Studios Metro station, only to find ALL the parking spots full with dozens of Rams and Chiefs fans circling the lot in gridlock. I bailed and drove ten minutes out to the NoHo Metro station (which has a much larger lot), only to find ALL the parking spots full with dozens and dozens of Rams and Chiefs fans circling the lot in gridlock. I went to the NoHo Metro station overflow lot, only to find ALL the parking spots full with…

I started cruising the streets of North Hollywood, looking for street parking. All of it was metered, most for one or two hours max. (How much is a parking ticket compared to what I paid for the tickets that I was going to miss using? Would they just give me a ticket or tow me?)

I finally found a spot about eight blocks from the Metro station with a four-hour limit. So-so neighborhood judging by the graffiti and piles of dog poop, but any port in a storm, eh?

Got to the Red Line and on a train to Metro Center with no problems. A couple of Chiefs fans on the train, but LOTS of Rams fans. Let the friendly banter begin.

The Expo line train from Metro Center to USC was packed. Then they let us out to start the cattle herd to the Coliseum.

Fighting through those crowds, only to get to a twenty-minute-plus wait to get screened through security at the gate.

Finally at my seat with The Younger Daughter and The Fiance! “Should be there about 4:30,” he said in ignorance. The time stamp on the photo is 5:36.

But we were there!

There’s a lot of construction going on at the LA Coliseum. And it was absolutely packed.

We were in the end zone, about halfway up, so our seats didn’t suck, but weren’t fantastic either.

At half time, the ESPN guys were doing their report from right down in front of us. You can also get a good feel for how many Chiefs fans (dressed in red) there were compared to the Rams fans. Unlike the games we’ve seen at the Chargers’ stadium (where it’s literally more Chiefs fans than Chargers fans) here the Chiefs fans were in the distinct minority.

Also at halftime we got a three-song “concert” from The Chain Smokers – who I have never, ever heard of. But the fireworks were nice.

As I said at the top, the game was an instant classic, being labeled by many as one of the greatest regular season games in history. It was something like the third highest scoring regular season game in history, and by far the highest scoring Monday Night Football game. The crowd was on its feet and just electric all night.

In the end, my beloved Chiefs fell to defeat, 54-51, in large part due to far, far too many penalties and three touchdowns for the Rams off of Chiefs’ fumbles and interceptions. We made more mistakes than they did. But we never, ever gave up. Even with all of those mistakes, we were driving with less than a minute less and could have easily tied it and sent it to overtime or won it outright in regulation.

It was utterly fantastic, and we were there.

It was a freakin’ adventure.

And if you think those crowds in the stadium and on the Metro trains were bad coming in (when the crowd arrived spaced out over four hours or so), you can’t even imagine how bad they were when 100,000 people all leave the game at the same time at the end. It took almost three hours to get home.

Worth. Every. Bit. Of. Effort!!

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Photography, Sports