My daughter and her partner fly to San Francisco for three weeks tomorrow. Quick word to San Francisco: Behave!
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A very interesting city. Kind of overrated in my opinion, but definitely cool. The food is amazing. Providence, where I'm from, and San Francisco are number one and two respectively for most restaurants in the US per capita. Those rankings flip every few years, so it might be their turn now. Of course, the key word in that equation is "capita" as we have about 180K people in Providence and 800K in San Francisco, with who knows how many million more in the Bay Area.
Actually, checking Google, the Bay Area metro has a population of 7.6 million while Boston/Providence metro has 8.5 million. So we're bigger! Take that SF! I'm not sure what the square mileage is but I have to imagine its more dense over there, but not sure.
I've been to SF a few times, and what I've always found is that it's either very windy or very foggy. More of a SoCal guy myself (in fact, I live there right now).
And those hills. Mother of mercy. All my cars are stick shifts but I'm glad I rented an automatic when I was out there. Incredible drive though going across the bridge to Napa, though. I had a blast.
It's very different. But so is the East Coast. And the South. And the Midwest. And Texas. The funny thing is that there are people from RI everywhere and we all seem to sniff each other out like a couple of dogs.
I've been to every state on the East Coast and a bunch of inland states in the east, but never further west than Louisiana.
My wife and I were in San Francisco the year before our daughter was born, just a couple of days. Won't mention Oakland, still shiver at the memory. San Fran was my first experience, 1996, of smoking prohibited in all indoor areas, pubs etc. Drove over the Golden Gate, saw Alcatraz in the bay, remembered Michael Douglas' bouncing car chases over those hills but restrained ourselves from replicating. Then on up Highway 101 (?) to Oregon and Red Woods. Much preferred the Red Woods, bucket list entry ticked off.
They banned smoking OUTSIDE in SF not too long after that, I think. They'll cane you publically for that.
My father was stationed in San Francisco from 1966 to 1968. We lived in Marin County. The 28 mile commute via bus took up to an hour and a half depending on traffic. BART didn't exist back then. I'm gad I got to see the area while the Haight was still going strong and all the natural sites weren't over-burdened with enormous visitor centers and concrete paths.
Our drive in a Chevy Sprint took us from St Louis to San Fran via Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, then back east from Oregon to Ottawa, flying out of Toronto, taking in Yellowstone, Rushmore, Gettysburg. We stood at Little Big Horn and my wife asked "how exactly do you get ambushed here?" It was rhetorical then and still is now.
Quite an amazing collection of habitats and diverse living environments across that continent.
Quite an amazing collection of habitats and diverse living environments across that continent.
I left VA and drove to the West coast via a stop and visit in NJ in 1973 with my surfing buddy. We surfed from Baja Mex. to Northern Cal over the course of 2 months following a newly written California surfing guide by Bank Wright. Too many stories to tell with a lot of faded memories, but all of them are entertaining if not good. Nice place to visit, but staying wasn't an option.
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After a stop start time and all kinds of life things getting in the way I wrote 2700 words today, hurray! On the other hand, carpenter ants can go straight to hell. Anyway, it's warm here. I'm hoping for the rain to come back.
Graphs will serve best to demonstrate two hockey-related points, so bear with me as I ask you to:
The difference in value between a first and second draft pick in the NHL is probably much greater than one might expect. Hockey advanced stats sickos have dug into it extensively and this is pretty much how it goes:
Even if the Cats are still kicking ass in a few years and finish close to the top, say earning the 30th overall pick, that's still going to have double the value or more of the 60th overall pick.
Not anymore. It's no longer common to see a fight in a hockey game. I watch a lot of games during the regular season and I might see a fight every 5, 6, 7 games on average. What a lot of people remember are the crazy times in the 70s and 80s when helmets (or visors) weren't mandatory, nobody cared about CTE, being an enforcer was a job, etc. After fighting peaked in 1987, it's dropped significantly year over year (couldn't find a good graph that goes to the present day, but you see the trend here):
The difference in value between a first and second draft pick in the NHL is probably much greater than one might expect. Hockey advanced stats sickos have dug into it extensively and this is pretty much how it goes:
Even if the Cats are still kicking ass in a few years and finish close to the top, say earning the 30th overall pick, that's still going to have double the value or more of the 60th overall pick.
Not anymore. It's no longer common to see a fight in a hockey game. I watch a lot of games during the regular season and I might see a fight every 5, 6, 7 games on average. What a lot of people remember are the crazy times in the 70s and 80s when helmets (or visors) weren't mandatory, nobody cared about CTE, being an enforcer was a job, etc. After fighting peaked in 1987, it's dropped significantly year over year (couldn't find a good graph that goes to the present day, but you see the trend here):
I think we discussed this at the OG when I was watching the NFL draft. 53 man rosters vs 23, and with the injuries in football, each time cycles through like 80 players a year. 2400ish players all in an given year. Lots more draft picks, lots more variance and intrigue. Do all the international players enter the NHL draft or are they free agents? In the NFL, there's nothing but the drafted players and the guys not good enough to be drafted out of college, who sign as undrafted free agents. All in per year... I don't know. 500 guys a year. Definitely a different world as far as drafts and player acquisitions go.
Yeah this definitely is ringing a bell. I might've even posted the same graph there. The NHL has 32 teams and there's 7 draft rounds, resulting in 224 picks. It's rare for stars, significant contributors, or even those who play a handful of NHL games to be drafted from rounds 4-7, but it happens. I love it when undrafted players get signed out of nowhere and light it up. But competition is tough. Plenty of first rounders will never play an NHL game.
For the draft rules, North American players have to be 18-20 by some date in September that year. International players can be up to 21.
Initially it sounds wild that football teams cycle through that many players per year, but with such large rosters and many injuries (that won't heal/rehab in time to continue the short season), it does make sense. In hockey, most significant injuries last 4-6 weeks (even minor fractures), so a team might call up some of their AHL players to fill the gaps a few times per year. If regular lineup players are struggling, occasionally they are "put on waivers" and sent down to the AHL affiliate, though other teams can claim that player, so it's risky if you think that player might improve later on. I won't dig into the waivers system; I'm already getting a bit too wonky here
You know what? I bet there aren't as many soft tissue injuries, blown ACLs, torn Achilles, detached hamstrings, and the like playing on skates as opposed to cleats on the ground. You're kind of unanchored being on ice, right?
It turned out that the 407 would have taken longer so we stayed on the QEW and it took us one hour to get to Toronto!
Often, it takes 2 hours because of the traffic.
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