—Popping in from a little hiatus to give an old fashioned run-on needlessly wordy post
—Little swimmer boy due in April, a happy covid accident that will be our first. If visitor restrictions are loosened by then, I may call up fylm to see if he wants to do the honors.
—Wife (who has had covid patients daily for a couple weeks) got vaccinated last week. The person in their office who manages their social media page (I don’t know why that’s necessary) posted a picture, which was also unwittingly the first public acknowledgement of her pregnancy. Blew up, tons of positive comments... then some anti-vaxxers started sharing on their ****-post groups and coming in, commenting, DMing in droves to call us child abusers, r-words, slaves to big pharma, all kinds of stuff. The more religious flare, the worse they were. Congrats honey!
—Love Christmas music and fully acknowledge my playlist isn’t universally liked. All about what takes you back. For me it’s tony Bennett (grandparents loved it), nat king cole, and Vince guaraldi trio on shuffle. Good, warm memories... hate virtually anything modern or any attempts to re-do classics. But you do you.
—I don’t understand Wayne Newton. In any way.
—Almost seems like the Cal era has run its natural course. Unless something changes, this feels like inevitability. One and done was a concept he needed to prove. Everyone at the beginning bought in and fought hard to do it. Now the players come in with expectations that revolve around riding the coattails of the last decade’s success but they aren’t willing to put in the same sacrifice and they don’t have the same work ethic; they expect results from the onset. Since our recruiting has slipped from the beginning of this era—they aren’t “THE BEST... OF THE BEST” that Cal once cited as his reason for being here—they get discouraged more quickly and he has less patience with them. It was telling when cal said they needed to play somebody—anybody—at the beginning of the season because the guys were tired of playing each other. I get the covid stuff... but your players should be hungrier than that, and you should be a better motivator than that. The best coaches don’t let their players get bored. Reinvent or get out.
—crappy analogy for why us fans are pissed: instead of getting 6 or 7 top tier parts, even if not fully compatible, to build a race car that you plan to take to the chop shop for profit in 8 months... how about you focus on building the best car possible? Then take your car to the chop shop.. your parts will still get plenty of cash but your car will perform better. He believes his generational poverty BS as if he’s the only reason these kids are getting paid. The good ones are getting paid with or without Cal and he needs to take a little less credit for that success. And once someone *doesn’t* get paid after their freshman year, he views them as a failure—damaged goods— and never gives them the same chance again over his new shiny prospects.
—Anyone need a fur coat of questionable origin?
—Havent kept up like I used to, quit reading around the beginning of covid because the last thing I wanted to do in my downtime was read more about covid or politics. Glad for some good ol’ sports redass to refocus gyero.