Thursday, February 15, 2024

Gheorghasbord: History Up Your Ass

We're defining history a bit loosely in this case, but the things we're talking about did all happen in the past, so I think it's okay. And I was a History major, so I know from this kinda stuff.

For starters, let's pour some orange juice, coffee, or milk (your choice of breakfast quaff) for Bill Post, who died at 96 last Saturday in Grand Rapids, MI. Post spent his career as an executive at Keebler, and was the man in charge of the company's plant in Grand Rapids in the early 1960s when a group from parent company Kellogg's tasked him with developing a breakfast toaster treat. Post and his team took four months to create a prototype he called fruit scones, which tested so well in Cleveland that the company took the product live immediately thereafter. Post's creation became so successful that a giant version of it was sacrificed on the altar of Lord Football just this past December:

Long live the Pop Tart, and may Bill Post's memory be a blessing.

Closer to home, geographically and nostalgically, our little college town got some pretty cool run on The Today Show recently. Craig Melvin filmed a pair of segments detailing the work of the historians at Colonial Williamsburg to restore the Bray School. The building, which operated just prior to the American Revolution, was the first school specifically opened to educate Black children in America.

The story of oral historian Tonia Meridith, who moved from Texas to work on the project and traces her own family to one of the students, is particularly fascinating.

Finally, on this day in 1996, Gheorghe Muresan shook off the effects of an evening of his 25th birthday celebration the day prior to drop a game-high 29 points and grab a game-high 13 rebounds in the Washington Bullets' 109-98 loss at the Milwaukee Bucks. Ghitsa led the league in field goal percentage that season on his way to being named the NBA's Most Improved Player. 

40 comments:

  1. i had a dream last night in which the teej and i were imperiled by a herd of hippos. make of that what you will.

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  2. Were they Pablo Escobar’s hippos?

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  3. Fun, rob.

    Because I know you all were worried, I survived five days in New Orleans (including Fat Tuesday) running a conference in the Crescent City. My body hurts today.

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  4. I had a dream about my man last night. And my man came by the studio.

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  5. Better imperiled than impaled by those hippos, I guess. I’ll be in Nola in four weeks.

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  6. Were the hippos hungry, hungry?

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  7. caitlin clark hit one from nebraska to break the all-time ncaa scoring record. fitting.

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  8. Nola in two weeks. OG v Nola MLR opener. On the owner’s jet. Ok it’s a NetJets thing but still.

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  9. tribe men lose. same as it ever was

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  10. once in a lifetime, hoopers playing in a dance

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  11. Season’s lost again, but just wait til next year

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  12. jay bilas used the word 'nadir' when he meant 'apex' in a column about caitlin clark this morning. does espn even have editors? obx dave would never.

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  13. Oof. That's a bad one. And ESPN has editors, though far fewer than it used to. And fewer reporters. Discouraging, though I always tell myself and others to remember what the company's first letter stands for, so as not to get worked up about lapses or conflicts or stupidities.

    Speaking of Caitlin Clark, she gets the record and goes for 49, three fewer than W&M men's entire team in loss to Towson. A flawed comparison, for sure, but I'm a flawed guy.

    Also, for those in the audience heading to New Orleans (and all of you music hounds, check out their videos), see if Omari Neville and the Fuel are live while you're there. A buddy saw them at Tipitina's just before Christmas and said they're aces. And yeah, that's Neville, as in NOLA music royal family.

    https://www.facebook.com/TheFuelNOLA/

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  14. espn fixed the error. they obviously read g:tb.

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  15. one of zcats has taken to sitting on zwoman's laptop, probably because it's warm, and I told her (zwoman, not zcat) to close or lock the laptop so zcat doesn't mess up her documents, and earlier today I heard zwoman yelling and screaming, then she stormed into my office and told me that zcat somehow deleted all of her emails. I told her to check the trash but they weren't there, so I told her to call IT and she said they're useless and I told her that I'm all out of ideas and she should've closed or locked the laptop like I told her, which is to say I took the Dave approach and that was not the right approach. Now it looks like her IT guys don't backup their emails which makes zero sense given that she works for a $19B company that was spun out of one of the largest tech companies in the world, but I didn't take the Dave approach and kept that to myself.

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  16. if you find yourself at a crossroads, i find it good practice to ask "what would dave do?" and take the exact opposite approach. got a bracelet and everything.

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  17. That's a tough situation at Zhome office. You should have posted about it here before 'going Dave'.

    The only satisfaction (not credit, mind you) that comes from being right is when she tells you you were right. And now even if that happens, you can't really afford to be smug about it.

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  18. Got any more of those bracelets? Asking for a friend.

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  19. the reverse situation occurs in this household every few months. I, after being reminded multiple times to lock my laptop, forget to do so... and one of the four cats either deletes files, sends nonsensical emails, or posts to 4chan

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  20. That’s insane that the IT department doesn’t have some sort of backup. Especially for someone of Zwoman’s stature who I’m sure is a big deal.

    Also, this is why cats sucks. My lazy ass bulldogs just snores through my zoom/teams meetings. She could get on my chair (much less my desk) on a good day.

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  21. In other news, I got another (semi) promotion today. My healthcare software company has multiple lines of business. I’ve only worked out home care line because that’s my background. I’m now taking on an additional (and similar) role in our IDD (Intellectually and Developmentally Disabled) space. Not sure why these people like me so much. Is the bar that low in the Northeast?

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  22. Reply to TJ - I don’t actually hate cats. I just don’t want them in my house. They do nothing for me as pets. Then again, we have a fucking Guinea Pig so I should probably be quiet.

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  23. zwoman continued to air email-related grievances over dinner, and I said "I don't see how she could have emptied the 'Deleted' folder, you have to confirm that you want to do it. Are you sure 'Deleted' is empty?" and zwoman said "Actually, there are 6 or 7 emails in there so she couldn't have emptied it" and I said "Maybe she has some sort of filter on so you only see unread emails, or she moved them to a folder" so zwoman searched her inbox for an email she needed and found it in the "Archive" folder. zcat Archived zwoman's Inbox! And this is something zwoman should've been doing all along, unless her employer doesn't automatically delete emails. It's a terribly bad practice to keep emails forever but it's a cataclysmically bad practice to not backup your emails, so who knows what's going on over there. Anyway, the upshot is she said "Thanks for telling me to look in the folders!" and I immediately said "I'm sure that's the next thing you would have done regardless." Thanks Scooter, you're right as always.

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  24. And Mark, an affectionate cat is a great pet. Aloof cats not so much. Any animal of a lower order than a cat doesn't belong in a house (apologies to your guinea pig and Dave's gecko).

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  25. Never apologize to our Guinea Pig (it’s definitely not mine). I barely acknowledge its existence and I’m pretty sure it knows I’ve eaten Guinea Pig multiple times so we both keep a wide berth.

    Also, I’m obsessive about backing up emails and blind copying myself on emails. Gotta keep receipts.

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  26. Im glad zman isn’t fixing to be sleeping outside for the final weeks of his forties! And cats aren’t totally useless. Just annoying.

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  27. avowed cat fan here. i love those arrogant bastards. i just wish mine had more time for my dog. and, z, this would be a good time for zwoman to commit some sort of corporate zcrime. can't do discovery on email that doesn't exist.

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  28. Big fun in historic Leesburg last night. Marls, Rob, and I joined some other cronies for some damn, fine music, courtesy of Carbon Leaf followed by antics and boozing until the wee hours. Always a treat.

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  29. Bad times in youth sports today. Our local basketball league is terribly organized. They have grades 6/7/8 all lumped together and don’t hold tryouts/evaluations while allowing for “requests” for placement of players on specific teams. At this age group it leads to some incredibly stacked teams. I have the youngest team and by far the most girls. We’re still good though. Top half of the league.

    But today we were missing 3 of our 4 best players (out of 10) and 2 others didn’t show up until mid 3rd quarter because of soccer. Oh, and the team we were playing was all 8th graders.

    To say it got ugly is an understatement. Called for a couple postgame beers at lunch.

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  30. I’ll never get used to Maryland being a Big 10 basketball team.

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  31. hi, danimal! and gheorghies!

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  32. been a minute since i was awake until 2:00 am on consecutive nights. might need a nap today.

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  33. Speaking of Maryland, Norfolk’s own Lefty Driesell has passed on. His is a great story for the ages.

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  34. And in an unrelated story, Putin’s legacy is pretty much going to be on par with Stalin’s at this rate. F that guy.

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  35. obx dave penned a great post on the ol’ lefthander rounds these parts a while back: https://gheorghe77.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-12th-day-of-gheorghemas.html?m=1

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