I have proof!
Good thing that I am familiar with the concept of the “missed approach” and the occasional need to execute a “go around”.
Tomorrow, the Main Event. GO CHIEFS!!
My wonderful children have sent the long-Suffering Wife and I on a Super Secret Mission to a Super Duper location (with spotty wi-fi, but First World Problems). It’s probably going to be a zoo tomorrow, then on Sunday we’ll be brave (we heard there was a shortage) as we attempt to take the charge out of The Bolts!
I’m pretty tech savvy, which leads to all kinds of “Can you fix my computer?” type questions. It goes with the territory.
Then there’s my mom.
Mom has never been a tech person. Mom has always been a practical joker. This leads to some interesting conversations where I’m never quite sure if she’s pulling my leg, totally clueless, or both. Today would be a good example.
Mom has a satellite TV setup and she wanted to watch all of the KC Chiefs’ football games this year, so she paid for the NFL package. Almost every week this season, I’ve gotten a call asking what channel the game is on. Sometimes it’s because she’s looking for it at 1:00 when the game doesn’t start until 4:00. Or the other way around. Last week the same question, but this time the game was at 8:30. She’s looking for the game on CBS, when it’s on NBC. That sort of thing.
Today I got a call because she wasn’t getting the Chiefs game, seeing a different game instead. Turns out that she was watching the local CBS feed, while the KC/San Diego game was also a “local” game, but for different markets. There was some confusion over this, where it seemed to me that she kept turning it back to the CBS affiliate or to ESPN or to the NFL Network. I kept trying to explain that there should be a whole block of channels, probably up in the higher-numbered pay-per-view and premium channels, where channel N would have Game A, channel N+1 would have Game B, Channel N+2 would have Game C, and so on. She just had to find that block of channels and pick the Chiefs game.
Still no go. She wasn’t understanding what I was describing and didn’t know how to search the listings. (DirecTV does have some sort of search function or directory channel, right?)
I was online and she wasn’t. (There’s a good reason she wasn’t. Mom doesn’t have a computer, pad, or smartphone. I’m not even sure she has a cell phone. No email, word processing, social media, games, photos — nada! The Internet and Mom are not on speaking terms.) So I pulled up the DirecTV web page and tried to search for her. For the record, at least on an iPad, the DirecTV site sucks when it comes to trying to search for a specific program.
Fine, I had the webpage for display of the channel lineup, current show, and shows for the next two or three hours. We’ll do it the old fashioned way, I’ll just scroll through hundreds and hundreds of channel listings looking for this mysterious NFL block that I knew had to be there. (It’s in the low 700’s.)
In the process of getting there, I’m talking to myself and I’m wondering if DirecTV carries NASA-TV on one of their channels. I’m a huge fan of NASA-TV and when Time-Warner dropped it here a few years ago I did my best to be politely annoying at every opportunity, wondering when they could put it back on and why they had dropped it to begin with. I watch a LOT of NASA-TV. (Still scrolling through the channel listings.)
Mom asks what I’m talking about. I tell her that I was wondering about NASA-TV. “Never heard of it,” Mom says.
“Really? NASA?”
“Never heard of it.”
Okay, maybe I’m not enunciating or we have a bad connection. “NASA, the guys who put people on the moon? The space shuttle?” (Still scrolling through the channel listings.)
“Oh, right, I know them.”
“Okay, they have a channel you can watch that I like.”
“Oh, no,” Mom says, “I have a Samsung.”
Count backwards from ten. Slowly. “No, Mom, I’m not saying NASA makes TVs. I’m saying that they have a channel you can watch with space stuff.”
“Don’t I have DirecTV?”
Again, take a deep breath. Count backwards from ten. Slowly. In German. I’ll (foolishly) try again. (Still scanning the channel lineup.) “No, Mom, DirecTV is the service provider that you pay to get the signal that goes into your Samsung TV. You have a lot of channels on there, like CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN, ESPN, HBO, and so on, right? NASA-TV is one of those channels.”
“Never heard of them.”
Deep, deep sigh. When working tech support it’s not nice to get frustrated and start yelling at the customers. This is doubly true when the customer is your mother. Fortunately, at this point I found the channel carrying the Chiefs game (#707). Mom changed the channel, found her game, and I was able to get off the phone and take a deep breath.
The Long Suffering Wife came in to watch the game, having missed the conversation with Mom and wondering why I was looking pissed. I started relaying the details. As soon as I got to the “I have a Samsung” line, she starts cracking up. As in, she might fall out of her chair type cracking up. That gets me laughing as I realize how silly the whole conversation was. When I mention the “Don’t I have DirecTV” line, the laughter just gets worse.
An hour or so later my son calls from Germany and we’re talking about the game. I mention the conversation I had with Mom. When I get to those lines, The Long Suffering Wife again starts laughing like crazy, my son is laughing as well, and I’m off the deep end again.
Later on, when I checked with Mom to see if she was okay with me telling this story, she claims that the “I have a Samsung” line was a deliberate joke. Well, she got me good if it was. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. In my defense, it’s pretty tough to tell the difference between her being confused and her being a prankster.
Wait… Maybe she’s been doing that all along! Maybe this has all been a diabolical plot of hers, a fifty-year performance art piece to “play dumb” and see how long she can keep me falling for it! Decade after decade of her testing me and seeing if she can drive me insane! When I was a teenager I was sure that she was, but now I know it!!
Well done, Mom! Well done!
P.S. — FYI, Mom’s fine with me sharing the story. But she has no idea what a “blog” is. I wasn’t going to open another can of worms. I’ll print out a copy and snail mail it to her. WITH AN ENVELOPE AND A STAMP! (How barbaric.)
P.P.S. — For the record, the DirecTV channel lineup search works just fine on my desktop. Maybe on an iPad there’s an app you’re supposed to use instead of going to their web page.
P.P.P.S. — NASA-TV is on Channel #346 on DirecTV. HEAR THAT, MOM? CHANNEL #346!
Filed under Entertainment, Family, KC Chiefs, Paul
In brief:
Here are some pictures from the November 23, 2006 game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. It was Thanksgiving Night, and the first Thursday night game in NFL history, a divisional rivalry game between my beloved Chiefs and the Denver Broncos. (The Chiefs won, 19-10!) We were in the St. Louis area visiting my son for the holiday. (He was stationed at Scott AFB at the time.) My son and The Long Suffering Wife, along with my daughters, conspired to surprise me with tickets to the game instead of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
It was colder than hell, but the Chiefs won, 19-10. It was spectacular!
The Truman Sports Complex, with Arrowhead on the left and Kaufman Stadium (where the Royals play) on the right.
Tailgating. Everyone tailgates in college and pro football – no one does it better than the Chiefs fans at Arrowhead!
My son and I, selfie-ing, ready for victory.
Arrowhead lit up like a Christmas tree as we were leaving after the triumph.
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports, Travel
Item The First: Heads up! (Literally.) I’ve seen several folks on Twitter talking about how they’re seeing bright ISS passes listed for their cities in the US this week. Check it out, especially for Halloween night. If you’re already out and about with the kiddies, setting your phone to go off a minute or so early will give you the “heads up” you need to see a pass.
Here in Los Angeles, there was a pass last night that I didn’t think I would see because of the heavy clouds. But I happened to be taking Jessie out at the right time and found some holes in the clouds to see the VERY bright ISS blinking in and out through the gaps. Spectacular!
For the rest of the week, at least for Los Angeles, there are passes this week tonight (Tuesday, the 29th) at 18:22 and 20:01 (the first pass is higher and brigher), Wednesday the 30th at 19:14, and Thursday night (Halloween!) at 18:23. The Thursday night pass is supposed to be especially bright, rising in the WNW with a maximum elevation of 47.2 degrees, a magnitude of -3.2 (which is much brighter than Venus), and setting in the SSE. You can’t miss it!
Item The Second: Yes, the central scientific idea in my October 24th Flash Fiction story is similar the idea in Larry Niven’s “Inconstant Moon”. Yes, while mulling over the random title I got (“Fire On The Sea”), I did think of Niven’s story as a source of the fire, since I wanted to do something other than just telling a story about a guy in a burning boat or oil rig or something. That’s how my thought processes go. I don’t want to do the “usual”. What else could be on fire on the sea? An oil spill? A large explosion of some sort? Maybe an asteroid impact over the horizon. What about the sun? What was that Niven story? Maybe the guy in my story is dealing with something similar. He’s looking east, waiting for the sunrise, so where does that put him. Jersey? Virginia? Florida? I don’t want to do the “usual”, so let’s make it Africa. OK, that works, so what’s this guy doing and thinking in that situation. (By the way, if you haven’t read “Inconstant Moon”, go do so immediately. It’s a classic and most excellent.)
Item The Third: So far, neither Rocky, Raquel, or “the kids” has managed to pry the screen off of their hidey-hole. Sorry, Pat! But I’ll keep an eye on it. They’re up there on the roof every couple of nights, there are plenty of half-eaten oranges left around, and the dog’s water bowl is occasionally quite muddy from where they’re using it to wash their food – but they haven’t reclaimed their hidey-hole. Yet…
Item The Fourth: Two thoughts on the media’s changing reaction to a certain couple of pieces of music. First, I thought that it was interesting to see Filter’s “Hey Man, Nice Shot” being used as the background music in an episode of NBC’s “The Blacklist” a couple weeks ago. A few years ago, when the song came out, I remember quite a bit of protest about it and folks trying to get it banned. Ditto for “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats, which I heard on a middle of the road, “classic rock” FM station the other day. Back in the day, I remember folks hollering for KROQ’s license because they dared to play it.
The second, equally upsetting thought, was the realization that “Hey Man, Nice Shot” came out in 1995 (eighteen years ago) and “I Don’t Like Mondays” came out in 1981 (thirty-two freakin’ years ago!!), so when I casually think to myself that it was “a few years ago”, the only one I’m fooling is myself, I guess. It’s not just a river in Egypt any more…
Item The Fifth: Which NFL team is undefeated at 8-0? Hmmmmm? Face it, coming off of a terrible year in 2012 at 2-14, this year we sincerely hoped that we would be better. Most folks were praying for an 8-8 year, and a few brave souls thought we might get to 9-7 and squeak into a wildcard playoff spot. To say that we need to reassess those goals and expectations is the understatement of the year. I don’t think we need to be reserving hotels and airfares to New York just yet. But it’s much, much better to be 8-0 at this point in the season than it was being 1-7 last year!
Item The Sixth: I swear, someone in the neighborhood has a kookaburra. I hear it almost every night, right around an hour before sunset. It’ll sound off repeatedly, sometimes a dozen times. I have no idea if it’s caged in someone’s house or if it’s on the loose (like Lester), but I would love to track it down and see it, take a few pictures, maybe some video. If nothing else, just to prove that I’m not hearing things and hallucinating.
Filed under Astronomy, Critters, KC Chiefs, Music, Odds & Sods, Science Fiction, Space, Sports, Writing
Item The First: The raccoons have (I hope) been evicted! Last week’s windstorm caused some minor damage on the roof. While making those repairs, I checked out the “hidey-hole” that the raccoons have been using for an occasional home for the last year or so. I hadn’t heard them in a couple of days so maybe they were off causing problems at someone else’s house. On close inspection, the hidey-hole was found to be vacant, so I nailed up some screening over the opening again. (Don’t worry, I checked, double checked, and triple checked. There aren’t any raccoons or raccoon babies in there to be trapped and starving to death.)
They can still eat our oranges and dates and run around on the roof and in our trees, but they can’t live under our roof.
Assuming they’re not clever and/or strong enough to simply pry the screen off…
Item The Second: On my mother’s side, I come from a family of practical jokers. Nothing malicious mind you, just enough to keep you on your toes every now and then. (Other stories, other days.) On the other hand, The Long-Suffering Wife doesn’t much cotton to that sort of nonsense.
We recently had need to buy a new washer and dryer set and it got delivered and set up while The Long-Suffering Wife was out of town. It occurred to me that this was an ideal setup for a most wonderful prank! Since we had gotten machines with lots of new bells and whistles, I needed to sneak into the laundry room before she could after every load was finished in the dryer. If I fold everything and then put it stacked neatly back into the machine, maybe I could convince her that this was a new automatic setting on the fancy, schmancy dryer!
Discretion (and a desire to not sleep on the proverbial couch) was the better part of valor, so I did not pull this trick on my lovely wife. I did tell her about it, but while I was giggling and enjoying the story, she was not amused, so I guess I had made the correct choice. This weekend, having let her in on the joke, I did go in and do it for one load, but got only a, “Cute, dear!”
Proof that I’m easily amused. But we knew that.
Item The Third: Following up on my posts from Saturday and Sunday, Biology-Online.org has responded to Dr. Lee with an apology. It appears to be earnest and sincere. Good for them!
In addition, as a subscriber to Scientific American I receive a slew of their email newsletters, such as “Scientific American Daily Digest”, “Scientific American Basic Science”, “Scientific American Space & Physics”, and “Scientific American Weekly Review”. I find these extremely useful and valuable for keeping me up to date on what’s going on in the sciences, as wells as providing easy links to the full length stories. Since many of the Scientific American blogs are included in the stories featured in these newsletters, I was wondering if anything regarding this weekend’s events would be mentioned there.
I wa pleased to see that his morning’s newsletter includes a link to yesterday’s blog post from Mariette DiChristina. Transparency, openness, and communication are all really good things.
Item The Fourth: With yesterday’s win over the Hated Raiders of Oakland, my beloved KC Chiefs are now one of just two undefeated NFL teams at 6-0. This is a source of considerable joy and happiness in our household, so for that I would like to thank the entire KC Chiefs organization. In these trying times, it may be simple escapism, but it’s not meaningless. As for the future, our next three games are against teams that are at or below .500, then we have our bye week. Dare we hope that we can go into that ninth game against Denver (the other team currently 6-0) at 9-0, quite possibly facing another 9-0 team?
One game at a time. But it’s great being a Chiefs fan this year.
Item The Fifth: Since the last couple of weeks seem to have had a lot of stress, let’s start the new week with some role models for breathing, relaxing, prioritizing, and keeping things in the proper perspective.
Jesse, asleep under my desk.
Joey, asleep in her sunny bay window next to my desk.
Filed under Cats, Critters, Dogs, KC Chiefs, Moral Outrage, Odds & Sods, Photography, Sports
Item The First: On Friday I tried to donate platelets at the local Red Cross Donation Center. To say the least, it didn’t go well. On Wednesday and Thursday I got e-mails and reminder calls, all of which instructed me to make sure I was well hydrated, drink extra, and so on. OK, no problem. Then when I get there they put in the needles (one in each arm) and tell me to sit tight for two hours. This raises some concerns. THEN they add this anti-coagulant to the return stream so that I can make it through the whole procedure. (This is normal operating procedure.) The problem is that this anti-coagulant is also an excellent diuretic. Lots of fluids + lots of diuretic = I’m not sitting anywhere for two hours without a catheter or adult diapers, neither of which was provided. Epic fail.
Item The Second: Make note of the name Nick Sloane. Mr. Sloane is the salvage master who lead the team of over five hundred experts to lift the Costa Concordia off of the rocks and slowly flip it back upright off the coast of Giglio, Italy. (Stories here and here, with a great time-lapse video here.)
Item The Third: I really liked the story I wrote this week for the Flash Fiction Challenge. I was on the fourth edit and getting really, really close to being done with it Thursday night when I realized that it was already 11:55 PM. I posted the story quickly with no further edits. Thinking about it more on Friday, I think the one thing that I would change is the last line. Instead of “That’s when I saw it.”, I would have it be, “That’s when I saw it – now I was in trouble.” More cliffery and hangery.
Item The Fourth: When I left for that appointment at the Red Cross on Friday morning, I was about two blocks from home when I realized that I had not double checked the gate to the back yard after the gardeners were there on Thursday afternoon. I did a quick trip around the block and got back just in time to see Jessie pushing the gate open, seeing me pulling up, and trying to go to full reverse to get back inside the gate before it closed behind her. She’s had another taste of freedom, and the road calls to her.
Item The Fifth: Three weeks into the NFL season, no one is particularly surprised to see the Patriots, Broncos, Saints, or Seahawks undefeated at 3-0. And no one’s too surprised to see the Jaguars at 0-3. BUT…
I’d like a show of hands of those who thought that in addition to those teams, the Bears, Dolphins, and my beloved KC Chiefs would be undefeated, and the Steelers, Redskins, Vikings, and Giants would all be winless at 0-3. In addition, the Chiefs are four point favorites for tomorrow morning’s game against the New York Giants. I like this. I could get used to this. Especially when by this time tomorrow we’ll be 4-0.
Filed under Health, KC Chiefs, Odds & Sods, Sports, Writing
(HEADS UP – If you hate sports, just can’t see what all of the fuss is about, or are just one of those folks who choose to look down on all sports for whatever reason – I’ll see you tomorrow, you don’t have to read further. It’s a sports rant today.)
Very early on after starting this blog I wrote a minor rant about some of my sports-based passions. At that time the LA Kings were just starting their run in the NHL playoffs and the LA Angels were already starting to disappoint about a month into their MLB season.
Now the seasons have turned, literally in the sports-related sense. The Angels are about two weeks away from the blessed ending of another thoroughly forgettable year and the Kings are playing their first pre-season game, with the season starting for real the first week in October. Best of all, the NFL season has started and my beloved KC Chiefs look like they’ll suck a lot less than they did last year!
The Angels will make a great case study for Harvard Business School or some sports management program. They’ve gone out for the last several years in a row and paid a TON of money to free agent players who have failed to produce anything like the numbers they were expected to. Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and (don’t even get me started on) Vernon Wells — big money, long term contracts, and mediocre performance from them all.
On the other hand, the Angels have gotten amazing production from some of their rookies and younger players. Mike Trout won the AL Rookie of the Year award last year and his sophomore year has been even better. This year’s rookies JB Shuck, Collin Cowgill, Kole Calhoun, Andrew Romine, Luis Jimenez, and Grant Green have all produced as well or better than the high-priced free agents, once enough injuries happened to let them be brought up from the minors. Maybe it’s because they’re hungrier to make it, maybe it’s just because they’re younger, but whatever it is, they’re doing a better job. Meanwhile, the team is stuck with hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries for the next ten years or so for players who aren’t producing now and will likely be producing less at the end of those contracts.
Interesting business model.
Meanwhile with thirteen games left we’re in third place, sixteen games out in the division. That’s not good math. In the wildcard we’re still alive mathematically, 9.5 games back, but we would have to jump over five different teams to get a playoff spot, and that’s not going to happen in this version of reality. We’re at 72-77, five games under .500, and the only realistic “goal” the Angels have for the last two weeks is to perhaps at least have a winning season. Whoopie!
When last we left the Kings, they were starting their playoff run, trying to defend their 2011-2012 Stanley Cup Championship. The Kings did really well in the playoffs, winning nine of the sixteen games necessary to hold onto the Cup. They beat the St. Louis Blues 4-2 in the first round and the San Jose Sharks 4-3 in the second round, before falling to the Chicago Blackhawks 1-4 in the Western Conference Finals. It was a glorious run and I had on my jersey for every game and was blowing the Joyous Vuvuzela of Victory with every goal, even if that meant hauling it across the country and blowing it in hotels and in the homes of relatives. (The relatives knew the job was dangerous when I married into the family, the hotels, not so much.)
As the new season starts, I’m really looking forward to another winning campaign and again being a contender for the Stanley Cup. Having won it once, I would like to see my favorite team win it again, and this year I would like to be there in the crowd on the night they dance it around.
Finally, after enduring in agony a miserable 2-14 year in 2012, it was with renewed hope that I (and about a half million fellow Chiefs fans) looked forward to this season with a new general manager, a new coach, a new quarterback, and a new attitude. So far we haven’t been disappointed. Today we had our first home game and won a close one over a good team (Dallas Cowboys) and that makes me happy. This upcoming week we’re the premium Thursday night game in Philadelphia against the Eagles. That should be a real treat.
I don’t really expect the Chiefs to be in the Super Bowl this year after posting a 2-14 record last year (not that I would object to that happening, mind you) but it will be great to be competitive again. I know that it’s a rebuilding year and that 8-8 would be a spectacular improvement over last year. And let’s face it, 7-9 would be OK, probably, kind of. Even 6-10. Maybe. On the other hand, if we catch a couple of breaks, 9-7 or 10-4 isn’t completely out of the question and that might get us into the playoffs. Right?
Just sayin’…
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