S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 24

Chicago Concert

 A week ago Wednesday, the first day of the month, I went to Walla Walla, Washington to see the band Chicago. It was definitely worth the drive.

I've liked Chicago since I was a teenager. I had almost all of their albums up to Chicago VII. After that album they went all pop in the '80s. (The albums I didn't have were Chicago Transit Authority, which was their first, a live album call Chicago at Carnegie Hall, and Chicago III.)(I never  heard any good things about Chicago III and the live album.)(Don't really like live albums anyway.)

The concert was at the rodeo arena at the Walla Walla Fairgrounds. I had floor tickets nine rows back from the stage. The only bad part was we were on the dirt of the rodeo arena. And the chairs were small and close together. I bought the tickets early in March of 2020, but we all know what happened and the show was delayed until this year.

But the concert was great. A bit loud but great (the speakers were about two-stories tall). They concentrated on their earlier stuff but did a little from

Photo by S. Evan Townsendthe 1980s. There was a drum duet which actually was pretty good. I'm not sure how many original members of the band are still in it. Their website doesn't list the members, just the ones who have left the band. Most of the playing was spot on and great. But some was a bit off (especially the flute player). The crowd was really into it (as was I) and that of course, feeds the band's enthusiasm. It was a very good time.

They hinted they'd be back next year. So maybe I'll have to go again.

I told my wife going in that they were either going to start or end with "25 or 6 to 4" (about a song writer lucubrating) They ended with it. All in all, a great show.

(I would have done this blog post a week ago, but I didn't have time between the concert ending and the blog post going live at 6am my time.)

I'm Sad

The University of Washington Huskies football team is 0-1. They lost to the Montana Grizzlies on Saturday. I was at the game almost on the 50-yard line, seven rows up from the field (see picture). 

This is a humiliating loss because Montana is a FCS team (that means the school is smaller and unable to recruit the best players) and Washington was a ranked team. I'm sure when the AP top 25 football rankings come out tomorrow, the Huskies will no longer be ranked.

The Husky quarterback Dylan Morris had 27 completions out of 46 attempts and was intercepted three times. And late in the fourth quarter, he missed critical down plays, including a 4th down that turned the ball over to Montana and pretty much ended the game. Morris was also sacked three times. There were no explosive plays and almost no long throws. Maybe Morris is the best QB the Huskies have. If so, we're in big trouble.

It looked like the Huskies were the FCS team, not a ranked FBS team. 

Going into this game, one sports pundit called it a "glorified scrimmage." But you don't lose those. 

Next week the Huskies travel to take on Michigan in front of  approximately 100,000 screaming fans. If the team does not improve greatly in the time before then, they are going to get their asses handed to them. That game is on ABC at 5pm PDT. 

College Football Starts!

College football is starting and after last year's awful COVID-shortened season, I'm ready. College football actually started last weekend with a few games being played. But it starts in earnest tomorrow. 

The AP Top 25 poll puts the University of Washington Huskies at number 20. (Annoyingly, it puts the Oregon Nike Ducks at number 11.) USC is number 15 and Utah is number 24. Arizona State is number 25. 

Of course, Alabama is number one. Of course.

I'll be at the Huskies' game tomorrow in Seattle. They are playing Montana in what will likely be a warm up game before they travel to Michigan on September 11th. The Huskies have a bad habit of losing big away games against non-conference teams. I hope that isn't the case on the 11th. 

The Montana game is at 5pm and will be broadcast only on Pac-12 Network which is available on Dish Network and Xfinity (it's basically why I have Dish). There's other places, too, listed here.

We'll have to see how new coach Jimmy Lake does. Last year, his first year, he went 3-1, losing to Stanford. But how will he handle a full season? We'll have to see.

I'll probably post on Sunday about the game on Saturday. Or maybe Monday. Right now all I can say is "Go Dawgs!"

Fun Words

Did you know that this blog is hebdomadal. It is, it really is. Well, usually. Except during college football season.

I enjoy interesting, fun words. Occasionally I'll sneak on in one of my novels. 

Here's an interesting word: Brobdingnagian. It comes from Gulliver's Travels and means "big, really really big."

Another fun word is crepuscular. which means "of, relating to, or resembling twilight. Also dim." But if you add "rays" to it (as in crepuscular rays), it means the rays of light that come out of the sky from clouds.  Also called "God's rays."

Phosphenes are the lights you see when you close your eyes. The lights that get more active when you rub your eyes in the dark.

And pareidolia means seeing shapes (such as faces) in random stimulus. Such as phosphenes. Or seeing shapes in clouds.

Oh, and  hebdomadal? That means occurring once a week. 

Do you know any more interesting words. I'd love to learn them. Let me know in the comments below.

The Simpsons

I recently finished watching the first ten seasons of The Simpsons on Disney+. My goal starting out was twenty seasons, but I'm not going to make it. The tenth season was hard enough to slog through (except there was one joke in the second-to-last episode of the tenth season that almost literally had me rolling on the floor).  And I have already seen most if not all of my favorite episodes such as "Last Exit to Springfield," "Duffless," and "Deep Space Homer."
One thing I didn't like was that Disney+ showed the episodes widescreen when they were originally 4:3. That sometimes cut off important parts of the visuals (such as in "Duffless.") See details here.
Also, the third season episode, "Stark Raving Dad" isn't on Disney+, perhaps because of its Michael Jackson connection (Jackson voiced a character who things he's Michael Jackson). Apparently you have to buy the complete third season on DVD to see it these day.

I watched normally two episodes a day. Sometimes on the weekend I'd watch more. 

Watching the series so fast, you can almost feel the quality degrading as the years pass. The early seasons (after the short season one) seemed to be the best, and it went downhill from there but with occasional brilliant episodes. 

I also watched the seventeenth season episode "Girls Just Want to Have Sums" as it was, I believe, the last truly brilliant episode. 

I watched The Simpsons in first run for thirty years. But then I gave up on it. I see it still is running but I'm not watching (I gave up on Family Guy, too).

Now I'm going to have to find something new to watch. Not sure what. Maybe catch up on The Expanse. 

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

The Pac-12 and Who I Hate

College football starts soon. And I am, of course, rooting for the University of Washington Huskies (Go Dawgs!) The Huskies play in the Pac-12 conference and there are some rivalries and teams I outright hate in that conference.
For football, the Pac-12 is divided into two divisions each with six teams. They are the Pac-12 North and the Pac-12 South. The winner of each division plays in the Pac-12 Conference Championship game.

First, I loath the Oregon Nike Ducks (Pac-12 North). They are my most-hated team. Mostly because they usually beat the Huskies. But also going back to when the Huskies had some minor recruiting violations, Oregon led the way for the Pac-12 to discipline the program even when the NCAA said there was no need for that. I will root against Oregon no matter who they are playing. Even the Cougs.

In second place, is the Washington State University Cougars (Pac-12 North). They are my second most-hated team and a cross-state rival. We beat the Cougars a lot, but of course, it's a cross-state rivalry. I'm required to hate them.

In third place is USC Trojans (Pac-12 South). They are just so arrogant. Even when they lose.

In fourth place is the Stanford Cardinal (it's a color and Pac-12 North). For some reason, we have trouble beating them.

In fifth place is the Utah Utes (Pac-12 South). They are a tough team to beat.

Finally, in sixth place is the University of Arizona Wildcats (Pac-12 South). They are (usually) a tough team to beat, especially when they play at home. Predictions are they won't be very good this year.

And the rest of the teams, including Pac-12 North teams Oregon State and California and Pac-12 South Teams Colorado, Arizona State, and UCLA I don't have much feelings toward. Except, of course, I always want to beat them when the Huskies play them.

Trees in 140 Characters

 I was looking for ideas to blog about and I found this random blog idea generator. It first wanted me to enter a noun so I entered "tree." Don't ask why. Five ideas came up. I didn't really like most of them (and they all had "tree" in them someplace). But one caught my eye:

"Tree explained in 140 characters."

I have a Bachelor of Science in Forest Resources. I probably know more about trees than the average Joe (although my specific area of study was turning trees into paper). And, as you probably know, 140 characters was what Twitter used to allow (now it's 280).

I had to think about what do trees do? How do they do it? What is the net result?

Here's what I came up with:

Trees grow up, turning air into sugar, sugar into structure, structure into height. They can be huge or merely tall. They make oxygen for us 

The last period is missing because that's the 141st character.

Trees take air, that is, carbon dioxide, plus water and turn it into glucose, a sugar. Then in a process I don't understand (never learned) they take glucose and turn it into cellulose which then becomes the structure of the tree. Some trees are tall and some hare huge (such as the California Redwoods and Sequoias). 

So what do you think of my 140-character description of trees? Let me know in the comments below.

Thirty Days!

It's thirty days until the University of Washington Huskies start their 2021 season. I'm going to be there as they take on an FCS team, the Montana Grizzlies.

This year is a bit of a mystery going in. Coach Jimmy Lake's record is 3-1 from last year's COVID-shortened season. So who knows how he'll handle a full season?

I've seen predictions that the Huskies will go 14-0 this season. I've seen predictions they'll be in second place in the Pac-12 North behind the despised (by me and all right-thinking people) Oregon Nike Ducks. So I don't know. I'm pretty confident they'll win their first game on September 4th against Montana. But I'm worried about their second game which is at Michigan. The Huskies historically don't do well on big, out-of-conference, nationally-broadcast away games. But maybe they will be better this year.

The recruiting buzz is positive as the Huskies apparently had some good players commit to the team. I don't know if that will manifest itself this year or later.

A while back I was watching a Huskies game from 2016. That was the year they ended up at #4 in the nation and were 12-2 overall (having lost to Alabama in the CFP). And the team oozed talent, from John Ross to Jake Browning, Myles Gaskin, and Tyler Rapp. Maybe that magic can happen again this year. We'll have to see.

That first game in thirty days is on September 4th at 5:00 PM PDT. It will be on the Pac-12 Network (which I get on my Dish satellite television service). I'll be in the stands yelling, "Go Dawgs!"

Simone Biles Did the Right Thing

Gymnast Simone Biles has pretty much dropped out of the Olympics being held in Tokyo this week. She said she needs to focus on her mental health.

Some people are mad at because she probably cost the US at least one if not more gold medals. I heard a news talking head say "There's Gen Z for ya."

But, I don't agree with that. As a person who is neurologically diverse (I'm bipolar), I understand Biles's motivations. As I explained in this blog post, you have to take care of yourself. It's important. More important than almost anything else.

Plus, watching gymnastics, I'm sure it takes a lot of concentration and you can't be distracted by anything. Otherwise, you could get hurt, perhaps seriously. It's like driving on a racetrack. You can't be distracted.

I admire Biles for having the courage to disappoint a lot of people to take care of herself. This is her third Olympics and she's 24 years old. That's a lot of pressure for a young woman. She'll be 27 when the next Olympics happen in 2024. She may still compete then. 

So, give Biles a break. She did the right thing.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

Second Guessing

I suppose everyone second guesses themselves. But I seem to have made an art form out of it. I'm always second guessing myself. In my freelance work, I'll send off an assignment, then wonder if I did something wrong, or forgot something. So then I'm always double checking after the fact.

Or in my fiction writing, I'll always wonder if I forgot something important. Then I hope beta readers find it. I usually don't forget; I'm pretty good at keeping things straight. Although I was just editing a first draft of a work in progress and a minor character changed names.

This isn't just in my writing. Late in June this year I worried that I forgot to pay my estimated taxes (due June 15th). But I, of course, had.

It's frustrating to always be waiting for the other shoe to drop because I'm not sure I did something right, when I did.

I don't know if I second guess myself more than other people. I have the feeling I do.

Do you second guess yourself a lot? Let me know in the comments below.